


No Haven for this Heart

by smolassassinchildx (smolassassinchild)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Babies, Character Death Fix, Childbirth, F/M, Gen, Psychological Trauma, Psychologists & Psychiatrists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:04:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolassassinchild/pseuds/smolassassinchildx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during season 3. Kara reups with the Colonial Fleet, trying to get her life back to the way it was, but her choices have left her with irreparable changes and the consequences thereof. She is not the person she was the day she left. AU after the year that Baltar’s Hair ate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone rose as the CAG took the podium, except for Kara who stayed slouched in her seat, foot propped up on the chair in front of her. Lee glared, but did not say a word. He just turned to the papers in front of him.

“I want to thank you all,” he began. “It’s been a long day following several very long months after an incredibly long year. I want to express my gratitude for those of you who stayed and served even during our brief peace time, and throughout the…”

Lee droned on about duty and making the right decision. Speech-making, she thought, clearly was not a trait that ran in the Adama family. She tried to tune him out, focus on something else, but couldn’t help but snort and roll her eyes, when he got to the part about how _hard_ it had been to serve during the Cylon occupation of New Caprica.

“Got something you want to share with the class, Starbuck?” he asked, fixing her with a cold look.

“Sir, no sir,” she said, a sickeningly sweet smile forced onto her face. “Carry on, sir.”

A low ripple of laughter sounded through the briefing room as Lee continued with his papers. There would have been a time where he would have clenched his jaw, but there would have been a tiny uptick at the corner of his mouth, and she would have grinned, and everything would have been business as usual.

That was a long time ago.

“…performance evaluations today. Most of you have proven that your skills are still up to par, despite time on the ground. Those of you who passed will be put on the CAP roster, ASAP.” Lee tapped his pen against the podium. He’d droned on all morning about making sure his were pilots flight-ready, exactly the way they had been before New Caprica. Like he was one to talk. “Those of you who did not will report at 0600 tomorrow morning for remedial training with Lieutenant Katraine. Each of you will be informed in private. Thank you for your time. Dismissed.”

Kara was halfway out the door, wondering if there was anything resembling a decent card game happening, when she heard Lee’s clipped voice from the podium. “Captain Thrace.”

Lords, even his voice grated now. She turned, arms folded across her chest. “What?”

He didn’t even look up from his papers as he spoke. “You will report to Lieutenant Katraine at 0600 tomorrow morning.”

“You’re putting me in remedial flight classes? Frak that.” Kara demanded, storming up to the podium.

He didn’t even look up at her, just kept studying his files. “I’m going by standard protocol. You didn’t pass the evaluation, Starbuck. You’re more than welcome to retest when Kat feels you are ready for it.”

“Bullshit,” she hissed. Gods, he was trying to get back at her, wasn’t he? That was the only frakking explanation. “That’s a load of crap and you know it.”

“No one’s blaming you, Captain.” His voice was cool and detached and it made her want to punch him in the gut or scratch him in the face. Make him hurt. Make him show her anything but this fake professional act, because it was an act. “A year away from duty would do that to you, not to mention the other… developments in your life.”

Kara swallowed hard. Frak him, frak him, _frak him_. Her fists clenched so tight, she might have been cutting off her own circulation. “That’s none of your godsdamned business,” she spat.

“You know what, it is my business.” Lee finally met her gaze. If looks could kill, she would have dropped dead on the spot. Instead, she straightened her spine, squaring her shoulders, and refused to look away. “I am the CAG, and one of my pilots is being a pain in my frakking ass because she doesn’t have the chops to fly anymore, and instead of putting in the work to prevent herself from getting killed and getting countless of others killed in the process, she is standing here acting like she wants to get thrown in the brig for insubordination. Does that not sound like my business to you, Captain?”

She sucked in a steeling breath, as she looked him up and down. He looked like a stranger, now, and that’s all they’d ever be. “How about the test to see if we can still _fit_ in the cockpit, Apollo. Let me know how you do with that one.”

She watched the line of his throat as he swallowed—obviously burning to say something, do anything—but he turned away. “Report to Katraine at 0600. Dismissed.” With that, he turned and pushed past her leaving her standing in the abandoned room.

Kara supposed that point went to her, not that she was keeping score, but her victory felt hollow. They usually did these days. She closed her eyes as she let out a deep sigh, but the pit of anger in her gut didn’t loosen. She needed something, anything right now to take the godsdamned edge off.

Fifteen minutes later, Kara was down in the firing range emptying clip after clip. The feel of her finger on the trigger felt oddly soothing. The target was a generic Cylon centurion, not really the image she wanted to be destroying, but it would do for now. She didn’t even have to think too hard to see Leoben’s face in the middle of the bullseye. The sonofabitch’s face was burned into her mind, if she couldn’t get rid of it this would be the second best thing.

When the paper hung in shreds, she set the gun aside to admire her handiwork. Taking a slow breath, she no longer wanted to crawl out of her own skin. Just as long as she didn’t think about anything that had happened earlier in the day, she would be fine. All she had to do now was make it to the mess before they stopped serving food, go back to her quarters and—shit. Something was missing.

“Frak,” she muttered to herself. She tossed her goggles and headset aside as she bolted out the door. How the hell could she have forgotten?

The daycare center was little more than an abandoned storage unit, filled with plastic chairs and tables that had somehow managed to survive the end of the worlds, but it had been a necessity—one for which Kara was eternally grateful. However, at this hour, there were very few people when she arrived. But, just as she expected, the one she was looking for was there and awake and screaming her little lungs out.

“Captain Thrace,” Petty Officer Warren greeted her with the eardrum-breaking bundle in his arms.

“I lost track of time,” she muttered, as she took the crying infant from him. Almost instantly, the deafening shrieks turned into hiccupping sobs. She muttered a thanks over her shoulder as she turned to leave. “Shhh,” she muttered, curling her arms around the baby. “Come on, Seph. It’s okay. Momma’s here.”

*         *        *

Lee’s heart hammered in his chest as he stumbled to a stop in the middle of the corridor. He bent forward, hands on his knees as he gulped down air, trying to catch his breath, and he wondered how the hell jogging got to be so hard. Lee heard Helo slow to a stop several meters ahead of him before doubling back.

Lee knew he was trying valiantly not to smile. “You know, Apollo, generally fitness tests aren’t given pass-fail; but in your case—”

“Very funny,” he managed, between gasps. Lee righted himself, leaning against the bulkhead. He hadn’t even made it one lap around the deck before he needed this break. Pathetic was the word that sprang to mind. He couldn’t remember the last time he had set foot in a gym or taken a jog around the deck. The last couple of months, Lee’d felt like he was moving through a fog. There was simultaneously too much and not enough stuff to do, trying to devise a rescue plan to New Caprica. He’d just felt so weighed down, and looking in the mirror lately, he could see why.

Lee wiped a hand over his brow and sighed. “This is harder than I remember,” he said.

“You want to quit?” Helo asked, with a pointed edge to his voice.

 _How about the test to see if we can still fit in the cockpit, Apollo_. Lee shook his head. “No, of course not. Absolutely not.”

“Then move it or lose it,” Helo picked up the pace again, jogging backwards with his eyes fixed on Lee.

Lee rolled his eyes and pushed off from the wall, trailing Helo down the corridor huffing and puffing the whole way, until they finally pulled to a stop in front of the gym. “More?” he groaned.

“You’re the one who wanted to lose the noodle-gut,” Helo said, striding over the threshold. “If you don’t want to—”

“I do,” Lee panted, sinking down on a weight bench. “I do.”

He grimaced as Helo handed him a set of free weights. A year ago, he would have been able to lift them without a problem. The rigorous set of moves Karl Agathon took him through, had his muscles aching and shaking. The burn was good though, it meant he couldn’t focus on the other things on his mind.

Couldn’t focus on the way Kara Thrace had worked her way back into his life after she’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want a godsdamned thing to do with him.

“Come on, Apollo,” Helo said, just as it felt like his arms were about to drop straight off his body. “Nothing worth having happens overnight. You can’t just wake up one day and expect change to happen. You’ve gotta work for it.”

“Believe me,” Lee hissed, squeezing out another rep with a strength he was sure he had lost. “I know.”

Thirty minutes later, Karl told him to put the weights aside and tossed him a towel. “Good work today. Maybe in a few months you’ll earn back that callsign of yours.”

“You’re a real comedian.” Lee mopped his forehead as he got to his feet. This was only the first workout following his new resolution to get back in shape, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to be able to get out of bed tomorrow for the next one. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem. It’s good to work out with someone else; keeps you accountable, keeps you grounded.” Helo shrugged and took a swig out of his water bottle. “So, Lee. How does it feel to be back aboard _Galactica_?”

Despite the command, _Pegasus_ had never felt like home to Lee. It had been his position and his job, but letting go of _Pegasus_ in the last battle felt like the beginning of a return to how life used to be. Almost. Nothing was ever going to go back to the way it used to be. “Great,” he muttered. Helo offered him the water bottle and he drank deeply. “It’s an adjustment, but I definitely missed this place. Never thought I’d live to say those words.”

“Right, now can you give me the answer that isn’t for the rabid press?”

Lee closed his eyes. The details of the return to _Galactica_ burned fresh into his mind. Stepping off the raptor into the sea of refugees, Dee at his side. There had been a charge of relief and anticipation that filled the air—along with the stench of filth and sweat. But the one thing that stood out most in his mind, stepping out of another raptor across the deck…

“I’m fine, Helo. Just getting on with my life.”

Helo took back the bottle of water and took a long swig. “And getting on with your life involves feuds your pilots?” Before Lee could say anything, he held up his hands in defense. “First of all, word gets around. Second of all, I outrank you now. Keep that in mind.”

Lee scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d been torn when he saw Kat’s reviews on all the pilots returning from New Caprica. His initial reaction was shock, to see that someone with Kara’s skills had fallen so far. But that only lasted a second before he realized she deserved whatever the frak was coming to her. “Starbuck isn’t the only one who needs to be retrained. It’s just a matter of protocol.”

“I’m not talking about the training. You have my full support there,” he said. “I know you guys used to fight, but it never lasted long. From what I’m hearing…”

“Oh, come on, Karl,” Lee grumbled. “You haven’t been XO so long that you forgot how pilots talk. Everything is about making their story bigger and crazier than the last version. She was insubordinate, and I set her straight.”

Helo studied him with a somewhat incredulous look on his face. “Look, I know it’s none of my business, but the two of you used to be friends. I don’t know what the hell happened between the two of you, but you work together now. Don’t you think you should at least try to be civil with each other?”

“I’m going to treat her the same way I treat every other pilot,” Lee said. In the past, Kara always managed to slide for the little things, from snide comments to outright bucking authority. That was just the way she was, that was the Kara Thrace he’d known. Turns out he hadn’t known a godsdamned thing about her. “And insubordination will not be tolerated.”

“Lee,” Helo said, moving to stand in front of him. “Just for that, you’re gonna drop and give me fifty.”

“Karl!”

“No pain, no gain, my friend.”

Groaning, Lee got down to the cold metal floor. His arms ached and this set was going to be hell. But he closed his eyes, thoughts going back to setting foot back on _Galactica_ for the first time after the Exodus. He remembered looking across the deck at the last Raptor coming off of the planet. Stepping down from the wing, was the stranger that Kara Thrace had become, with her hair long, a new tattoo on her skin, and—of all things—a baby in her arms. She’d told him once that she never wanted to have kids. Then again, she’d told him she wasn’t getting married either. Guess she just needed to find the right guy—frakking Pyramid Star Anders—to settle down with.

Suddenly, those push-ups seemed like nothing.  


*         *        *

  
_The bundle of kindling thudded against Kara’s back as she stooped to pull back the flap to the tent. Sam was sitting hunched over the one cast iron pot they owned, cooking up dinner with the last of their firewood._

 _“Back already?” he asked, as she dropped the pile of sticks in the corner._

 _“I told you it wasn’t a big deal.” Kara shrugged off her jacket._

 _“I know,” Sam said. He rose from his seat, putting the cover on the pot. “It’s just a long walk and I just don’t want you over-exerting yourself.”_

 _She rolled her eyes, didn’t even bother to face him. If he was going to act like this for the next seven months, she wanted out. “I don’t need the help. I’m pregnant, Sammy. Not broken.”_

 _Although, sometimes it didn’t exactly feel that way. Whatever he was cooking was sending up a smell that her stomach didn’t agree with. Kara raced out of the tent and made it about ten feet out before she doubled-over and vomited. Predictably, Sam was right behind her, pulling her hair away from her face. She knew people were staring, but she couldn’t bring herself to care all that much. When she finally stopped heaving, she shrugged him right off and walked back inside._

 _He followed. “Feeling better?”_

 _She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I feel frakking great. Can’t you see the glow?” she drawled. “Best thing that’s ever happened to me.”_

 _Sam let out an exasperated sigh, jaw clenching just a little. “You don’t have to take my head off, Kara. I’m just trying to help.”_

 _“I don’t need it. What I need is to stop feeling like my insides constantly want to jump out of my throat.” Kara sank down on the cot. Of course, there was one way to end the incessant morning sickness, and that would be to end the pregnancy. Even though abortions had been made illegal during Roslin’s presidency, Cottle had been certain their new weasel of a president didn’t give a rat’s ass about enforcing that law._

 _Still, legal or not, abortion was a sin in the eyes of the gods. Her hand absently floated down over stomach. She had never wanted kids, kept up with her shots to avoid getting pregnant in the first place, because the truth was she hadn’t known what she would do if she ended up in this situation. Hell, she still didn’t. Kara pushed the thoughts out of her head and pushed herself up onto her elbows just as Sam walked over to her._

 _”You want something to eat?” he asked._

 _Kara shook her head. “Not unless it has no smell or taste or texture.”_

 _Sam looked down at her with an affectionate smile. “I’ll get you some bread,” he said, heading back to what they laughingly called the kitchen. “I just keep thinking about how lucky I am to have gotten off of that nuked out planet, to be alive…”_

 _Kara just grinned. “And who do you have to thank for that?”_

 _“I know,” he said, with a mock-suffering sigh. But when he turned back to her with the bread, the bright smile on his face faded. He took another breath and muttered, “And I know.”_

 _Kara raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”_

 _“I know there was someone else,” his voice was calm and even. The blow he delivered next nearly knocked the wind out of her. “I can’t have kids, Kara.”_

 _All the air was suddenly gone from her lungs and she struggled to find something, anything, to say. “What the h—”_

 _“None of us can. After being stuck on Caprica for so long… the radiation meds could only do so much, you know? All of the resistance…”_

 _Kara’s head swam. Sam was infertile, and he’d known. He’d known all along that the thing inside her wasn’t his and yet— “Why the hell are you saying this now?”_

 _“I was hoping you’d say something first,” he said. “But then I realized that wasn’t going to happen… I thought it might help you make a decision.”_

 _“Shit.” She shook her head, putting everything aside as she went for her jacket. If Sam wasn’t the father… then that meant… No. “I knew I married an idiot, but I didn’t know exactly how dumb you are until just now.”_

 _“I’m an idiot for choosing to stay with someone I love? I don’t care who the father is, Kara. It’s your child, and you’re here. That’s all I care about.” Sam stood glued to the spot, arms folded across his chest._

 _“You got part of it right,” she muttered and was out the door before Sam could stop her. To his credit, he didn’t follow her._

 _Kara found herself wandering around New Caprica City for the better part of an hour before she needed to go. The only thing she could think to do was to go and get drunk, forget the whole evening, but that was obviously not an option right now. So she left, she didn’t know where she was headed, except away._

Check it out. It’s a great place for a house.

 _She hadn’t realized that she’d gotten so far away from the town, but there was nothing but grass and bushes as far as she could see. The sun had long disappeared, leaving nothing but the night sky and the faint gleam of metal of metal in space above her. Kara raked a hand through her hair. If Sam wasn’t the father…_

 _Kara was left with only one conclusion as she stared out at the wasteland around her. “Frak,” she hissed. “_ FRAK! _”. Her voice echoed in the empty night, lungs burning, like maybe if she could yell it loud enough it wouldn’t be true._

 _Like maybe if she could yell it loud enough, she wouldn’t be carrying Lee Adama’s baby._

 _But it was true. Of course, it was true. Of course, this was the sick kind of joke the gods would play on her._

 _It was supposed to be over. Lee was supposed to be a part of her past—where she didn’t have to miss him or remember him or think about him. She’d tried to cut every last tie between them. It was supposed to be easier that way._

 _But now…_

 _Flickering in her mind, she remembered the last time she’d seen Lee—the utter hatred in his eyes and the venom in his voice. _What if she hadn’t left?_ What would happen if she told him about the ba—no. It wouldn’t change a damned thing. What was done was done and there was nothing she could do about it._

Kara felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes and she blinked hard. There was no frakking way she was going to cry about this. Kara shook her head, staring up into the night sky. “Happy now?!” she shouted.

She didn’t know whom she wanted the answer from.

  
A small cry jerked Kara out of her thoughts. Even in the darkened room, she could still see the outline of Seph’s crib. Kara slid out of the bed and peered over the edge. Seph looked like she was still asleep, despite kicking and whining like she was having a nightmare. Did babies have nightmares? She didn’t know. Hell, Kara didn’t have a godsdamned clue what she was doing, but she was damned well doing it.

She reached out, her hand brushing over Seph’s stomach and the little girl started to settle. Kara wouldn’t blame the kid if she was having a bad dream; Seph had certainly been born into enough nightmare material to last a lifetime. Kara’d been eight months pregnant when the cylons arrived at New Caprica, when she’d been taken from her tent by two cylon centurions and locked up in Leoben’s little piece of Hades.

Sometimes, she’d found herself wondering if having Seph had been a blessing or a curse in that hellhole—the things she might have done if she hadn’t had to protect her daughter. Kara felt bile rising in her throat, and quickly forced the thoughts out of her head.

Kara’s hand drifted up, tracing over Seph’s chin and cheek and nose. Seph looked, in so many ways, so much like Kara had in the few baby pictures she’d had, especially when she was sleeping. But when she was awake, she had the bluest eyes in the worlds—just like her father.

With the baby now calm, she drew her hand away, remembering that she had to report herself ass-early for remedial flight lessons thanks to said father. “Frakking Lee,” she grumbled as she climbed back into her rack. It hadn’t taken long to hear through the _Galactica_ grapevine that Lee had been the one to order the jump away from New Caprica, and if it had been left up to him the fleet never would have returned. He would have been perfectly content leaving her—and Seph—to their own personal hell. The bastard wouldn’t have lost a minute of sleep over it.

Kara rolled over to look at the clock. It glared at her, harsh red numbers telling her it was 0200. It taunted her, reminding her that sleep wouldn’t come.

It rarely did these days.


	2. Chapter 2

“I know the last place any of you want to be right now is a remedial flight class, but I’m looking to make this as painless as possible, so we can get you back out in the cockpit ASAP.” Kat herself was not exactly thrilled to be giving lessons at 0600, but it needed to be done. Those who could catch up quickly could be back on CAP by the late shift, and those who couldn’t needed as much practice as possible. Surveying the room in front of her, Kat realized that one pilot was very obviously missing from the class. “Those of us who are putting in the effort at least,” she said dryly.

It was 0605 when Kara Thrace walked into the ready room. Her long hair partially pulled back, bangs falling in front of her eyes, which did nothing to hide the dark circles there. Kat could barely reconcile the fact that this woman had once been her teacher—that this woman was _Starbuck_. Whatever the frak happened on new Caprica had burned away the confidence and bravado, leaving nothing but anger and exhaustion. Kat almost pitied her. “So, Captain Thrace, you finally decided to join us.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Starbuck said, sliding into a chair in the second row, despite the numerous empty seats directly in front.

“I don’t know about you,” Kat said, “but to the rest of the people in this fleet, 0600 means 0600. Not 0601, not 0605. 0600.”

“Guess I need a new watch,” she snapped, eyes narrowing and daring Kat to push the issue. But there were six other pilots who might actually want to get on with the lesson so they could get back to their jobs, so Kat moved on.

“All right, we’re going to start with a basic systems review before we—yes, Starbuck?”

Kara lowered her hand, a sly grin forming on her face. “Yeah, question. How do you turn the Viper on?”

Kat counted to ten, fighting back the headache that was building at her temples.

“What? We’re here because we don’t remember jack shit about flying, right?”

“This is the Colonial Fleet, Captain Thrace, not an after-school club,” Kat snapped. Kara’s face instantly darkened, lips tightening into a thin line. “You’re here because you decided to rejoin the fleet and are expected to act like the soldier you are.” Kat turned to look at the six others who had managed to show up on time. “You all had difficulties on New Caprica, and no one is holding that against you. But what’s important now is that we are at war. We need to—what!?” Kat trailed off as Starbuck’s hand shot into the air again.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Kat groaned. This was going to be a very, _very_ long class.

*          *          *

  
Five hours. Five hours sitting in the cockpit had felt more like five days. Drill after drill, formation after formation, most of which she had designed in the first place. Kara was tempted to call it hell, though she'd recently had a redefinition of the term.

 _"All right, we're gonna run through that one again,_ " Kat's voice crackled through the speaker. " _Form up on me._ " For the hundredth time. Her idea to hit the throttle, pull a 360, pulling up in front of Kat and firing a burst over her wing, didn't seem to prove her mastery of the Viper and its controls the way she had been going for.

"Tell me something, Starbuck," Kat snapped, striding across the deck later with rage rolling off her in waves. "Do you actually want to fly ever again?"

"What?" Kara said, fighting back a grin at Kat's indignant expression. "I out-manuevered everyone out there."

"I don't care who you out-maunevered," Kat yelled, despite Kara towering over her, staring her down. "If you can't stay in formation and follow a frakking order, you're not getting back out there."

"Bullshit," Kara barked. She wouldn't tell Kat that the cockpit didn't quite feel the same anymore. She didn't feel the rush of blood in her veins as the bird left the cockpit, didn't have that rush of feeling... alive. Kara chalked it up to these stupid frakking tests and drills. "You need me."

"What the fleet needs is Starbuck, but from what I'm seeing, she got left behind on New Caprica."

Kat's words finally cut through the fog she'd been wading through since she crawled out of bed that morning. Rage, low and steady, trickled in her blood. "You don't know what the frak you're talking about," she hissed.

"What I know is that every pilot in my class was down on that rock, same as you. The difference between them and you, is that they're actually trying to get their jobs back."

"So they can suck up to the fleet that frakked off and left them there in the first place?"

"How about you show some gratitude. If it wasn't for us, you'd still be rotting away on a cylon infested planet right now. Face it. You made the decision to move down there and play house with your boyfriend. Well, look at you now… a washed up has-been with nothing but a screaming kid and a sloppy technique….” Kat’s voice faded to a dull roar in Kara’s ears.

 _"That was an unfortunate first meeting." Leoben walks down the stairs with an insufferable little grin on his face. Kara glances down at the body on the floor, his body._

 _How long has she been sitting here? How long ago did he come down those stairs mumbling about how all this has happened before? How long ago did she wrap the chain of her handcuffs around his neck and pulled until he dropped to the floor where the body is now._

 _She’s been slumped on the couch since she found the windows to be unbreakable, the door reinforced and bolted, and every inch of this prison designed to look like a home. She didn’t see a clock anywhere in the apartment. The only clue she has that time is passing is the darkness beyond the impenetrable windows—that, and, of course, the frakking toaster walking down the stairs._

 _Her heart hammers in her chest. If it beats any faster it might just rip a hole in her. Leoben grabs the chain, fist clenching tight even as he smiles. “Let’s get these off of you. I want you to be comfortable here. This is your home now. Our home.” When her wrists are free, she rubs the skin, chaffed and bleeding. Leoben watches her, almost pitying. “Here,” he says, acting like he actually gives a flying frak. “Let me get that cleaned up for you.”_

 _“Don’t frakking touch me!”_

 _“Starbuck,”_

“Starbuck!”

Two hands closed on Kara’s shoulders, shaking hard. Her vision swam for a moment, grays blurring in front of her until the deck came back into focus. Kat stepped back, brow knit in confusion. “What the frak is going on with you?”

Kara jerked back, stumbling a few steps. Another set of hands caught her, steadying her as she regained her balance.

Kat shook her head, already walking away. “Starbuck, you’re on maintenance ‘til the end of your shift.”

Some part of her felt like she should have argued and protested, but she didn’t have the energy. She could barely muster up the strength to say… something. She wasn’t sure what exactly. Something was there, she felt it sitting heavy in her chest, but she didn’t have the words. Grunting, she kicked over a stool as she turned away..  


  
*           *          *

  
The afternoon had passed by Lee in a rush, after a long meeting on the potential to find Earth in ex-President Baltar's calculations, a two-hour workout session with Helo, rushing to the mess to catch dinner, and the quickest shower he could manage to be reasonably presentable, he was still going to be late for a meeting with his father. He was striding determinedly to be as on time as possible when a voice called after him, "Major."

Lee turned to see Kat hustling to catch up to him in the corridor. "Lieutenant," he said, nodding. She slowed her pace as she came up beside him, holding out a folder.

"Report on this morning's class, sir," she said. Lee grasped it and tucked it under his arm.

"Thank you, Kat." He wasn't going to have time to read it for a few more hours. "Anything in particular stand out?"

Kat shrugged. "It was pretty basic, formations and drills. For most of them, it was just a matter of practice and time and the skills started coming back. In my opinion, they're ready to be placed on CAP again." Relieved, Lee nodded. "There are a couple who still need more time."

He turned down the corridor, the catch to his father's quarters coming into view. "Who are they?"

"Ricochet. She's still struggling with the controls." Kat sighed, and Lee knew what was coming next. "And Starbuck."

"What did she do this time?"

Kat shrugged her shoulders. "The usual." She slowed to a stop and shook her head. "But something was weird."

Lee glanced towards the hatch, wondering if he could excuse himself from the conversation. This day had already been impossibly long and the last thing he really wanted to hear about was the latest frak-ups by Kara Thrace. Kat, however, barreled on. "When I was talking to her, she just... was gone."

"Gone?" Lee quirked an eyebrow. Not exactly what he expected to hear.

"Like she couldn't hear a word I was saying."

"Are you sure she wasn't just ignoring you?" Lee scoffed.

"I'm sure. She was muttering something, but quiet, I couldn't make it out. I literally had to shake her out of it."

He had to admit, it was incredibly strange behavior even for Starbuck. But he had more important matters to deal with right now. "All the more reason to keep her out of the cockpit. Thank you, Lieutenant."

Kat saluted and continued on her way as Lee approached the hatch and knocked.

“Come in,” his father’s voice rasped from within when Lee knocked on the hatch. He pushed the door open to find Adama sitting within a flood of paperwork.

“You wanted to see me, Sir?” he asked.

Adama didn’t meet his gaze, but did rise from where he sat on the couch. “Have a seat, Major,” he said, gesturing to the room. Lee opted to stand, watching as his father went for a bottle of whiskey stashed in his desk. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you.“

“That makes one of us,” Adama replied, returning to the couch.

Lee surveyed the papers. “What’s all this?”

“Reports. I’ve been going through the debriefings from returning personnel from New Caprica. I’m just about done with them, but the ones on the returning pilots are ready for you,” he said. Adama lifted the glass to his mouth and downed half the contents. Lee looked at the papers directly in front of him, and could make out _Colonel Saul Tigh_ at the top.

“I’ll have to look through them when I’m done with Kat’s report.” Lee gestured to the folder tucked under his own arm.

Adama pushed his own papers aside and glanced up at Lee. “How is the training going?”

“I just got her report, but Kat thinks five of the pilots are ready to be placed on CAP again.”

“What about the other two?”

“Ricochet still has some issues with the controls. She’s sharp, but she’s struggling. I’m going to talk to Cottle about getting some physical therapy for her hand.”

His father turned back to his papers, shuffling through the folders in front of him. “I just saw her debriefing a moment ago,” he murmured. Finally alighting on Lt. Adrianne Marus’s folder, he picked it up and flicked it open. “Ricochet was held in the cylon detention center for two weeks. Her hand was broken during an interrogation. The hand needed to be broken and reset upon her release.”

His father’s face was grim. They had both known that the situation on the surface was dire; it couldn’t have been any other way. But now, looking at the sheer proof of everything that had happened down there, it was overwhelming. He had made the call to jump away, to leave these people behind, and it had been the right decision. He was sure of it.

“Release?” Lee asked. He was fairly certain it took more than time spent to walk out of a cylon prison.

“Let’s say Lt. Marus was on the Circle’s short list. She may have been the next out the airlock, if the President hadn’t issued a blanket pardon. So many lives were lost down there. So much senseless violence.” He held a file out to Lee. “Look at this.”

Lee took it. The segment from Chief’s debriefing detailed a failed assassination attempt on President Baltar. Tucker Clellan had strapped a frakking bomb to his chest and infiltrated a public ceremony the President was supposed to attend and blew himself up. Lee felt blood draining away from his face. Duck had been one of _Galactica_ ’s best pilots. He remembered seeing him, shortly before he mustered out to move down to New Caprica, planning to start a family with Lt. Farmer. Lee’d wished him the best of luck; he couldn’t imagine that was the last conversation he’d had with the man, let alone how desperate he must have been to throw his life away, taking out so many others with him. And it was merely a side note in someone else’s report.

After a long uncomfortable silence, his father spoke. “Who was the other?”

“What?”

“The other pilot. You told me about Ricochet, who else isn’t ready yet?”

“Starbuck.” A sudden, dark desire rose in him to see her debriefing, wonder what her choice to move down to New Caprica had brought her.

“Not the answer I was expecting.”

“She can’t stay in a frakking formation. She’s reckless and endangering the rest of the pilots, and the rest of the fleet. She doesn’t give a flying frak about who she puts in danger.”

“Hmn…”

“What?”

Adama rummaged once more through the folders. “Kara’s report seemed oddly suspicious, especially given the length of her captivity.”

Captivity? He supposed that it wasn’t a surprise. Someone who had once been a military asset like Kara would have been seen as a particular threat to the Cylons. Then again, she’d left that life behind hadn’t she—ripped herself out of the fleet, out of his life. He had tried, actively, not to think of her since then. His father held the file out to him and Lee readily took it.

Flipping it open, Lee muttered as he read. “Taken from her tent two days after the start of the occupation, held in solitary confinement until the fleet’s return…” The details contained in the report were scant at best. There was a brief note about a single cylon guard, and another about the birth of…that kid one month after she was taken. Other than that, the file didn’t contain much information at all. “I don’t see what’s wrong.”

“Think about it. She was held prisoner for four months and nothing happened to her?” his father growled. “Lt. Marus was held for two weeks and can barely use her hand, Tigh lost his eye to those frakking machines.”

“And they kept Starbuck, a prominent former member of the fleet, out of the way so she couldn’t frak things up for them.” Lee shrugged, ignoring the sudden pang of curiosity. It didn’t matter, though. Starbuck could take care of herself; she’d made that abundantly clear. “Makes perfect sense to me.”

Adama shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think something happened to her down there, something she’s not talking about because we can’t see what happened. Which leads me to why I called you here. I want you to find out what it is.”

Lee shook his head as he envisioned the conversation. It would begin with a question, and end up with at least one black eye and a split lip. Whose, however, he was unsure. “Me? I don’t think I can… I don’t think I’m the right person for this.”

“You’re her direct superior, and her friend, if she’d tell anyone, it would you be you.”

Lee felt a strong headache building at his temple. Gods, how could someone—a military leader no less—be so painfully blind to everything going on around him. Lee’s lips narrowed as he shook his head. “She’s not going to tell me anything. Captain Agathon might be a better choice, Sir.”

“You’ll talk to Starbuck, Major.” Adama held out to him a stack of files, the reports on the returning pilots “Report back to me by 1600 tomorrow.”

Lee grimaced and acknowledged his father’s order. “Will that be all, Admiral?” Adama nodded and Lee spun on his heel, gripping the files until his knuckles turned white.

  
*          *          *

  
By the time Kara had finished with her maintenance shift, she stunk of sweat and grease and tylium fumes. They were smells that had once comforted her, but all she felt now was sick. The repairs were so routine and mundane that she could have done them in her sleep—at one point, anyway. Still, she couldn’t get away from the looks people kept sending her way—like she was a warhead that might explode if they got too close. She didn’t know why the hell she’d frozen up on the deck, and she didn’t want to think about it anymore. All she needed was to get away from this shit for a while, so she headed straight for the rec room.

Of course, when she got there, all eyes turned to her and an uneasy silence swept over the room. Of course. Frakking gossipers, she thought, they’ve got nothing better to do with their time than sit around yakking like schoolkids—and the CAG said _she_ was a crap soldier. Kara glanced around the room, spotted a table with a card game, and went for it. She kicked out a chair and dropped heavily into a seat.

“What?” she hissed. Hex quickly turned his attention back to his cards, while Showboat cast her a raised eyebrow before looking away. Narcho just scoffed. The three of them finished off their hand.

Showboat looked back to Kara as she gathered up the cards to shuffle. “Are you in?”

“I’m not sitting here for the hell of it,” Kara said.

“You don’t have anything to bet with,” Narcho pointed out.

“Stake me.”

The few cubits Hex lent her went a long way. She won the first hand, but so what, she thought. More worthless money in a game she’d played a thousand times, maybe more. But she wasn’t about to get up and leave yet. A few hands later, Kara heard a gruff voice behind her.

“Dead Man's Chest? Cutthroat game. Not usually your style.”

She glanced up over her shoulder to see Tigh standing over her shoulder. Most of him, anyway. “It is now. And I’m in it to win. You want in?”

She’d never had much in common with Tigh, or maybe she had too frakking much in common with him. Either way, he’d rubbed her the wrong way for many years, but they’d started to come to a tentative understanding. With all that had changed, it was almost good that she could still stand to have him around. Between the two of them, they cleared out the other three pilots—that or they were frakking sick of being face to face with the ugly proof that they’d sat and twiddled their thumbs for months while they’d suffered on that godforsaken planet. Either way, it left the two of them sitting at an empty table with a wide berth around them.

Tigh leaned over and pulled a flask from the inside of his boot. He held it out in offer. “Want some?”

 _Gods, yes,_ her mind screamed. “No.”

He gave a shrug like _suit yourself,_ and tipped the flask back. “So,” he said. “Rumors on the ship are that you’re going crazy. Well, crazier.”

Kara swung her arm wide, like she was welcoming people to a freak show. “Come one, come all to see the great Starbuck lose her frakking mind,” she snarled. “Not a frakking one of them knows what the hell it’s like to sit in a cylon prison.”

“So say we all.” Tigh looked her up and down, it was worse with the one eye. She felt like he was looking for the scars to match his—not that he was going to see hers. “What happened to you, anyway?”

Kara shrugged, staring fixedly at the table. “Came back to my tent. Found a bunch of toasters waiting for me. Wasn’t exactly in a position to fight back.” Her stomach twisted at the thought. What if she hadn’t been pregnant, what if she’d done the smart thing and gotten rid of… Nausea rose in her stomach. Frak, she couldn’t blame that on the nugget. None of it was her fault.

“We all thought you were dead. You were gone before the resistance was a gleam in someone’s eye.”

“I take it that’s the one they ripped out.”

Tigh didn’t laugh, but for a moment he seemed to enjoy the bitter humor. That quickly passed and he barreled on. “Everyone except Anders, that is. He couldn’t give up on the notion that you were out there somewhere.”

“Sammy’s always been full of stupid ideas,” Kara muttered.

“Strange he wasn’t around when you went missing. You’d think the doting dad-to-be wouldn’t let you out of his sight. Not that I’d know.” Tigh took another long swig from the flask. “I hate kids. And Ellen never wanted them.”

“Neither did I.” She sat up a little bit straighter, not really sure she wanted to know where this line of questioning was going, but completely sure she wasn’t going to like it.

“You know, you looked about ready to pop the last time I saw you.”

How could she forget? The last time she saw him was the day he moved down to that rock, right before the cylons arrived. “…Eight months.”

“Hmn,” he muttered, seeming painfully curious now. “Wedding night baby, then? Or maybe…” A grin. “…a little before?”

Bastard. He knew. Crusty old bastard had put it together. She had to give him credit for being a competent drunk. But her stomach still clenched. “If you want to ask me something, then frakking ask it.”

“It’s really none of my business who you frak, Starbuck but...”

Tigh’s voice sounded distant. He was still talking but it just wasn’t registering.

 _I can’t have kids, Kara._

She remembered that night. She remember needing to get out, to run, to scream, to do anything to make it not true, but unable to do the one thing she needed to just forget.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Kara had snatched the flask from Tigh’s hand and drank deep. When was the last time she had felt the burn of alcohol sliding down her throat, the warm feeling pooling in her gut, knowing that soon everything was going to be just a little bit better? It had been too long. Not since before—

She took another long swig. What was one drink going to matter? It wasn’t like she was breastfeeding anymore.

“Thirsty?” Tigh asked with a smirk. She didn’t answer, just closed her eyes and waited. “Does Apollo know?”

“Frak no.” Kara slumped in her seat, studying the flask intently. She’d never told him. Sure, she’d thought about it, but all she had to do was remember the bitter hatred in his eyes and she was always left with the same conclusion. “Wouldn’t make a damned difference anyway.”

Tigh took the flask back from her. “Well, this has been an interesting evening, Thrace. But I need a refill.” He gave the container a shake and all she could hear was a small splash rattling around inside. She was sure it had been at least half full when she took it.

She watched Tigh half-stumble out the hatch. There was something she was supposed to be doing right now, but she couldn’t remember the frak it was. That fact probably should have bothered her more, but for once—for frakking once—she didn’t feel like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. It felt… good. Gods, she couldn’t remember the last time she felt just _good_. Her limbs were already starting to buzz pleasantly, and all she could think of as she headed to the galley was that she might finally get some sleep tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

**  
** _Before Kara opens her eyes, she knows something is wrong. She just feels it. Her hand swipes out finding nothing but empty mattress beside her. She sits up, eyes adjusting to the dim light._

She’s gone.

 _Kara scrambles to her feet, tripping her way over to the living room. Somewhere outside a red light glows, giving the room a bloody cast._

 _“Seph!?”_

 _No answer. How could a two-week-old baby answer? It doesn’t stop her from yelling again._

 _“Seph!!”_

 _Kara’s heart pounds in her chest, banging like a drum._

 _A door swings open and more light floods the room from above. Kara looks up to see_ him _silhouetted in the doorway and she knows—she knows he’s taken her. He took a frakking newborn child in the middle of the night and…what? What did that frakking psychopathic toaster do to her child?_

 _“Son of a bitch!” she yells, storming towards the stairs, as he descends as calm and cool as ever. “Where is she? Where the frak is she!?” She grabs the lapels of his shirt the moment she can get within arm’s reach. One hand cocks back to strike but her reflexes are slow from sleep and he’s a machine and he grabs her wrist before the blow lands._

 _“Come now, Kara. Violence isn’t going to solve anything.” He looks at her like she is a child who doesn’t understand. His grip on her wrist is bruising, and she’s pretty sure it might break if she tries to pull away. Her heart continues to pound, blood rushing in her ears._

 _“Frak you!” she shouts. She kicks him hard but his grip on her wrist does not loosen. She knows why he did it. He’s punishing her. For the first time since Seph was born she’d been able to get the upper hand. She stabbed him in the chest with a shard of glass from a broken mirror and watched as he bled out on the carpet. She took something of his—a body—and he’s taken something of hers. “What the hell did you do to her!?”_

 _“That doesn’t matter anymore, Kara.” His voice is ice, smooth and cold. It chills her. “I told you. You’re destined for greater things, and that child only would’ve held you back. I did what I had to do, for your sake.”_

 _He’s lying, he has to be. But, she wouldn’t put it past him to… she can’t finish the thought. All the air is suddenly gone from the room and she can’t breathe._

 _“It was for the best, Kara. She’s… in a better place now. Isn’t that what you humans say?” He almost laughs. “Such a strange idea, but I suppose it’s a small comfort. Now yo—”_

”Shut up!!” _Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes. Pain flares as she tries to tear away from his grip. “You killed my daughter! You frakking murdered her. That’s not for the best, you frakking toaster!”_

 _Her heart pounds strong and wild and blood rushes in her ears. She’s barely been a parent for fourteen days and already she’s failed. She couldn’t even keep her little girl safe from this frakking monster. Lords of Kobol, please…_

 _Leoben’s expression changes, feigning regret. “I had no idea you would react this way,” he says almost thoughtfully. “I only did what I thought was best for you. For your future. That child had no place in your destiny, but if you really want one so badly Kara, we could make one together.”_

 _His free hand touches her hip and she wants to throw up. Her head his pounding. “Don’t frakking touch me, you sick toaster!”_

 _“Please, Kara. Don’t you see? I’m only trying to help.”_

 _Bang. Bang._ Bang.

The world came back to Kara in swirling dark grays as someone pounded at her door. Her head ached and it took her a moment to realize she where she was—in her quarters, aboard  _Galactica_ , home. But something wasn’t right.

Kara swayed as she got to her feet. The room lurched and she wondered if she would even make it the short walk to the door. By some small miracle she managed to make it to the door without tripping over herself. She flicked the light on and pulled the hatch open. The light beyond it was blinding but she could make out the figure of a person and the sound of a crying baby.

Shit, Seph. Kara spun, looking back towards the crib—the empty crib. How hadn’t she noticed? Godsdamnit, how could she have been so stupid?

“Captain Thrace, if you’re going to be leaving Seph with us for a longer period of time, you need to give us the supplies to properly—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know… I didn’t mean to...” Kara scooped Seph into her arms. “Not gonna happen again,” she said, closing the door in the woman’s face.

Seph was wailing when Kara leaned back against the hatch. She clutched Seph to her chest, stroking the back of her head. Seph didn’t cry like that, the only time Kara’d heard that sound before was the morning Leoben had returned from gods know where the hell he’d taken her.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, letting her eyes slide shut. “Shit, I am so sorry.”

She’d forgotten about her own daughter. Kara had been so caught up in the need to feel all right, just for a little while, and the thought that she needed to check on her own child had completely escaped her. How could she have? After all that time on New Caprica—the only thing she had even focused on was keeping Seph safe and cared for and out of the hands of that frakking monster— and she’d completely forgotten about her.

Seph hiccupped as Kara started rubbing her back, her cries becoming less frantic, and more hungry. And why wouldn’t she be, Kara hadn’t left enough bottles for… frak, how long had she been out of it anyway? She’d started drinking just after her shift and hadn’t stopped until… Seph interrupted her thoughts with a piercing wail which was enough to give her a headache on a normal day, but right now it made her feel like her skull was about to implode.

Kara put the baby down in her crib. “Hang on, Seph” she muttered, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. Kara stooped to dig through the contents of her locker for the formula. Where the frak had she put it? It was always right here. Kara stumbled as she turned to look around the room. “Frak.” Seph let out another piercing wail. “I know. You’re hungry, I get it.”

 _That child has no place…_  Leoben’s voice echoed in her head.

Kara sucked in a deep breath fighting the urge to just scream.

When had her quarters become such a mess? She kicked aside a set of discarded fatigues and found the formula for no godsdamned reason buried beneath them. It had been easier to take care of Seph before, when her entire life was confined to a small apartment with bars beyond locked doors and shatter-proof windows. The thought made her sick but it was true. But now she couldn’t frakking stay on top of making sure her own kid was fed.

Once Kara made up the bottle, she scooped Seph back up. “All right, nugget,” she said, trying to keep her voice low and calm and not screaming, because, hell, she’s the one who forgot to feed her. But the moment that Kara brought the bottle up to Seph’s mouth, though, the baby turned her head away. “Oh, come on.” No matter what she did, Seph refused the bottle—even tried to smack it out of the way with her tiny hands. Fine, so she wasn’t hungry. Kara set the bottle aside and checked her diaper—not wet.

“All right, okay,” she said, trying to keep herself calm as much as she was trying to calm Seph. She stood, pacing the floor, bouncing Seph gently as she walked. Slowly, the cries turned the hiccups and the hiccups turned to sniffles, and finally Seph was quiet. Kara let out a deep breath and set Seph down in her crib.

No sooner had Kara put her down, than Seph started bawling again, her face turning red as tears rolled down her cheeks. Kara felt her hands starting to shake. Godsdamnit, why the hell couldn’t this kid just… just  _stop!?_  Panic welled up in her. Frak. Frak this! The urge to hit something overwhelmed her and she kicked the bulkhead. A sharp pain shot through her foot, reminding Kara that she had forgotten to put on her boots. She stumbled back a few steps as Seph let out a sharper wail.

Kara slumped against the wall, dragging her fingers through her hair. “ _Frak!_ ” Panic clawed at Kara’s chest. The room suddenly felt impossibly small, the walls collapsing in on her. She tore from her quarters and didn’t stop running until she reached the head. Kara stooped over the sink, splashing cold water onto her face, waiting to feel like she didn’t need to crawl out of her own skin.

She looked up to see a stranger, a worn-out shell of a person, looking at her and it took a few seconds longer than it should have for Kara to recognize her own reflection. Gods, what the hell had she turned into? Weak, pathetic, couldn’t even pass a flight eval that she’d frakking designed.

Kara stared at the strange image in front of her until the disgust roiling in her gut forced her to turn away. Her legs felt like lead as she dragged herself out of the head and back to her quarters, where Seph was still sobbing in her crib. That was when it hit her.

She couldn’t… she just couldn’t do this anymore.

* * *

Lee was irritated, though not fully surprised, when Kara was late for the briefing. That had been par for the course these days. Maybe a couple of shifts on kitchen duty would set her straight, he thought as he went through the motions of the briefing. His gaze kept drifting towards the empty seat towards the back she’d favored these days. As the briefing drew to a close, he found himself wondering where the hell Kara got off, blowing off her duties like this, his irritation spiraling into a full-blown rage.

This was frakking unacceptable, he thought as he stormed towards her quarters. She had been the one to rejoin the fleet after she’d gotten herself an honorable discharge. If she wanted to stay out, she should have frakking stayed out—moved onto a civilian ship with her husband and her kid, after all, that was what she’d wanted before.

Lee hammered his fist against the hatch and stood back. He could hear noise coming from inside, but couldn’t make it out. The door flung open revealing the woman that Starbuck had become. Kara’s hair was half falling out of a ponytail. Her eyes were bloodshot with dark circles beneath them. They narrowed at the sight of him and she shifted her body into the space between the hatch and the jamb, folding her arms across her chest. “What?!” she growled, her breath reeked. Behind her, a high-pitched wailing sounded.

Lee’s jaw clenched and he lit into her, the full force of his anger pushing his voice loud and sharp “Failure to report for duty carries a serious penalty, Starbuck. I hope sitting around on your lazy ass is worth it. You used to get away with a lot of shit, Kara, but people let you slide because you were the best. Well not anymore. I don’t have any frakking patience for your bullshit.” He gave her a withering look. “You’re the one who came crawling back to the Fleet, but all I can see now is a frak-up who can’t be bothered to do her job—”

Another loud cry came from within the room. Kara glanced over her shoulder, back to Lee—watching him with wide eyes—and then turned, disappearing into her quarters “—or take care of her godsdamned kid, apparently.” He shoved the door open as he followed Kara into the room.

“ ** _Shut up!_** ” she screamed at him. Kara spun back towards him, her arm lashing out. The punch was sloppy but it stung as it connected with his jaw. Before Lee could recover enough to swing back, she was by the crib, muttering angrily to herself as she gathered the screaming brat into her arms. Kara stalked back towards him, but she looked straight through him. “You think you can do better? Fine.”

Before he could stop her, Kara thrust the wriggling bundle into his arms and brushed past him. “You take her,” she hissed. “She’s yours, anyway.”

Lee floundered a bit, jostling the baby until he had her firmly in his arms. “ _Kara!!_ ”

“Your problem now.” She tossed over her shoulder as she bolted towards the open hatch.

Lee turned to look for her but found that he was alone in the room. He stalked back over to the door, yelling out into the corridor. “ _Starbuck! Get back here right frakking now!_ ”

The hallway was empty, and Kara was gone, but her words still echoed in his head.

 _She’s yours._

Lee stared at the child in his arms, mouth hanging open. There was no frakking way it was true. She was just frakking with him.

 _Oh lords._  Lee’s head reeled.

Lee looked from the empty, open hatch down to the wailing infant in his arms, trying to figure out the best way to hold it—to hold  _her_. Suddenly, Lee remembered being four years old, holding a newborn Zak in the hospital with his mother’s arms around them both. He remembered his father telling him that he was going to have a lot more responsibility now that he was a big brother. The only thing he could really remember about holding a baby, though, was something about supporting the head.

Gods, he couldn’t deal with this right now. Lee needed to find Sam, and leave this problem with him… But if the kid was Sam’s, why wasn’t he here instead of bumming around on one of the civilian ships? Wouldn’t he want to be with his child? Unless… he knew it wasn’t his. Did the timeline even add up? Kara gave birth a month after she was taken prisoner, and the cylons invaded… eight months after the ground breaking.

 _She’s yours._

His head throbbed, and the kid’s crying wasn’t making it any better—his kid’s crying.  _Frak_. Lee sat down on the rack, gently rocking Seph in his arms. No matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to get her to calm down. Of course, he couldn’t. He was a complete stranger to his own daughter. And of course he had frakking Kara Thrace to thank for that. How the hell could she have kept something like this from him!? What possible excuse could she have come up with to hide Lee’s own frakking child from him?

Mind reeling, Lee had no idea how long he’d sat in that empty room, questions racing at a thousand kliks per hour in his head as Seph screamed and whined and kicked.

He jumped when a voice came from the open hatch. “Major?” Lee spun to find Cally standing in the open door—belatedly, he realized he probably should have closed the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

Lee racked his brain for any sort of reasonable explanation as to why he was sitting in Kara Thrace’s quarters holding Kara Thrace’s child, but the truth was too much and nothing else made sense. All he could think to say was, “She won’t stop crying.”

Cally crossed the room and gently took the child from his arms. Her nose crinkled, immediately. “She needs a new diaper.”

Lee nodded slowly, unmoving as Cally stared at him expectantly for way too long. “That means you need to get her a diaper,” Cally prompted him.

“I don’t know where she keeps them.”

“Then look. Or you hold the wet baby and I’ll look. I can’t do both, sir.”

The words somehow snapped Lee into action. He shifted through the clutter until he finally found a pile of clean cloth diapers. He held one out to Cally and watched as she lay Seph down on the bed changed the diaper. She rolled the soiled one up into a ball. “You’re going to have to wash that,” she said, setting it aside.

Once Seph was clean and dry, Cally handed her back to Lee. “Thank you,” he said, curling his arms back around the little girl.

“Sir, why—” Cally trailed off, lips pursed. “Where’s Kara?”

He glanced back towards the hatch. “I don’t know.” He gave her a helpless expression. “Can you help me with her? She’s been crying for a while.”

Lee wouldn’t know until later how fortunate he was that Cally had found him and shown him how to change a diaper and prepare a bottle and a few other things. Lee’d waited in Kara’s quarters for almost three hours—enough time for Seph to fall asleep, wake up needing to be fed again and to fall back to sleep—and Kara had never returned. Finally, left with no choice, he packed up a bag of supplies and headed back to his own quarters with the baby, keeping his head bowed to avoid any looks from the rest of the crew. Fortunately, Dee was working a double shift that night and he might actually be able to get some sleep before he would have to talk to her about it. He stretched out on his rack, keeping Seph close to his side, and exhaustion hit him like a ton of bricks. He was out the moment his head hit the pillow.

Some time later, he was awakened by a knock at the hatch. Seph was still asleep, making small snuffling sounds as Lee slowly opened his eyes. He eased himself out of the bed, smoothing out his wrinkled uniform as he walked. He pulled the door open to reveal his father standing with a distinctly displeased expression on his face.

“Major, would you care to explain why you’ve failed to answer multiple pages to report to my quarters?”

It was true that Lee had failed to report to Adama at the appointed time, and the first page had come while he was sitting in Kara’s quarters trying to calm Seph. He couldn’t bring himself to go, barely even registered the call. He’d probably slept through a few more, too. “Sorry, sir. It’s been a… very strange day.” Lee didn’t need to think up more of an explanation than that, as Seph decided that this was the perfect moment to start fussing. Adama peered over Lee’s shoulder into the room.

“Lee?”

Lee scrubbed a hand over his face as he turned and moved back into the room, motioning for his father to follow. He knew that this was going to have to come to light sooner or later, he just didn’t think it was going to be this soon. Seph was still asleep but even so, she was kicking and whining.

“You’re… babysitting for Kara?” Adama asked, clearly grasping for some reasonable explanation as to why Lee would have Seph in his quarters.

“Not exactly.” Lee shook his head. He racked his brain for the best way to put it, but soon came to the conclusion that there was no  _best_  way to put it. “She’s  _my_  daughter.”

Adama’s brow furrowed, studying Lee like he was speaking another language. “What?”

“I didn’t know, I had no idea until last night. Kara just dumped her with me and left.”

“But it’s possible?” Adama asked, his gaze sliding over to Seph. “It is actually possible for this baby to be yours?”

Lee swallowed hard. “Yes.”

His father was silent for a moment, watching the little girl—his granddaughter—as she slept. Lee waited, the silence was agonizing. His father had never really been around when Lee was a teenager, but he imagined this is what it would have been like if he had accidentally impregnated his girlfriend. Finally, Adama spoke. “You had an affair with Kara? What were you thinking?”

“Dad, I don’t—”

“She has a husband, and you have a wife!”

“It was before either of us were—”

“And she was Zak’s fiancée.” Adama’s face hardened.

“I know!” Lee shouted. He briefly looked to Seph but luckily she hadn’t woken up. “I know,” he repeated, his voice softening.

“So you decided to completely disrespect his memory and—”

“That’s not what—”

“Then why?” his father demanded.

Lee opened his mouth but no sound came out. His first instinct was to blame it on the party. They had both been drinking far too much, it wasn’t the first time someone had had ill-advised sex under the influence of alcohol. But that wasn’t the truth—not the full truth anyway. Yes, he had been drunk. But the alcohol had just brought down his inhibitions enough to do what he had wanted to do for so many years, to say the words that grief and guilt had kept buried for so long.

He loved Kara Thrace. Or he had.

Lee sank onto the rack, head hanging and gaze fixed pointedly on the floor, feeling his father’s stare. He’d tried so hard not to think of that night, how happy he had been only to have it all ripped away from him in the light of day. He’d loved her, and she’d destroyed him in return.

Lee looked up to see his father still looking at him, expecting an answer. “I was drunk,” he said lamely. “It was the night of the party, we’d both had too much to drink and one thing just… led to another.”

Adama nodded and snorted gruffly, just as Seph started to wake up. She made a small noise, but didn’t start crying right away. It was improvement as far as Lee was concerned. “May I hold her?”

It was the first time since his father had walked in that he’d shown any sign of being family. Lee nodded slowly and picked up the little girl, transferring her into Adama’s arms. Seph looked back and forth from Lee to Adama and back to Lee before she started to whine again. “I think she might miss her mother,” he said to Lee. “Where did Kara go?”

“I don’t know,” Lee said. She had run off so quickly, with such a panicked look to her, he didn’t have any idea where she could have gone. Fleetingly, he found himself wondering if Kara was okay.

* * *

  
“Captain Thrace.”

She heard her name, but just kept going. Didn’t matter that she was tripping every other step, she just kept going. Footsteps sounded behind her, following her through the dim corridors. Dogtags clinked on their chain as the owner ran. “Starbuck.”

Kara’d wondered how long it would take the brass aboard  _Galactica_  to send someone after her when they realized she was gone—she knew it was going to happen eventually. She’d been measuring her time in drinks, not minutes, and even then she’d lost count, but it must have been a few days since she’d gone AWOL.

The Marines had fit in with the crowd at the  _Rising Star_ ’s bar about as well as Kara had fit into the fleet these days. It hadn’t been hard to spot them and slide out of the bar before she was noticed—or so she had thought. Turned out, though, the marines weren’t alone. Kara’d made her way through the maze of corridors but Sharon Agathon had managed to keep up with her through every twist and turn.

“Kara, just stop and listen to me for a minute.” Sharon jogged up alongside Kara and slowed down to match her pace.

“I don’t have a frakking thing to say to you,” Kara snapped.

Sharon maneuvered herself in front of Kara, blocking her path. “Are you really that stubborn? You just vanished! No one knew where the frak you went to, we’ve been worried sick.”

“Oh really?” she drawled. “That’d sound a hell of a lot more convincing without the Marines.” A sudden wave of dizziness swept over, her stomach lurching, Kara but she refused to lean on anything for support. She stopped where she stood and folded her arms over the chest.

“Yeah, well the Marines were mandatory. I asked if I could come.” Sharon shook her head. “They’re taking you back to  _Galactica_  one way or the other.”

“Yeah, so why the frak did they send a toaster with them?” Balance recovered, she shoved past Sharon and continued on her way.

“You know that if the Marines take you, it’ll be worse than if you return of your own free will.” Sharon reached out, grabbing Kara by the wrist. “Kara, you’re my friend. Don’t you see? I’m only trying to help.”

 _Kara spins around, staring hard at the face of that sick toaster. “ **I said ‘don’t frakking touch me, you motherfrakker!** ’” Kara tears herself out of Leoben’s grip and strikes him hard across the face. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. _

“Kara!”

 _“Shut up!”_

 _Kara kicks Leoben in the stomach and strikes him again the face before he goes down. Anger rushes in her veins like relief. She looks down at his body before her, groaning as he sits up and she wants him never to see the light of day again. She wants to kill him, but not a quick bleeding out. She wants him to suffer, wants him to feel physically every bit of pain he’s given her._

 _Dropping to her knees, she straddles him. Her fists pound his chest, his head, his face. Anywhere she can land a blow, she lands it. She digs her nails into his skin, leaving long marks, turning red with fresh blood._

 _“Frak you!” She chants it, over and over like a mantra, pouring out her frustrations until she couldn’t anymore—not because she is exhausted, not because she has finally found that moment of satisfaction, but because something was holding her back—physically restrained._

 _“Let go of me!” she bellows. “LET GO OF ME!”_

 _No matter how she thrashes, how she struggles, she can’t get free of whatever has a grip on her, and her lungs are burning, she can’t breathe. The world around her is blurring, bending, lurching until it all goes dark.”_


	4. Chapter 4

_Galactica, Racetrack. Raptor Two-Five-Seven. Approaching, requesting medical assistance at hangar bay, ASAP._

The call instantly unnerved Karl. Sharon had been the one to pilot the Raptor over to the  _Rising Star_ , with Racetrack along as ECO and several Marines. The fact that it wasn’t her voice crackling over the wireless, requesting medical assistance, made a knot form in his chest. The Admiral was not on duty—rather he was spending time with his newfound granddaughter while Apollo was on CAP. 

“Racetrack, Galactica,” Dee replied. “Medical assistance will be waiting upon your arrival.” 

Karl watched as she put in the call to Sickbay to have two stretchers waiting at the hangar deck when the Raptor arrived, as Racetrack requested. Dee was really throwing herself into her work the last few days, keeping herself busy. He couldn’t blame her— _Galactica_  had found itself in the middle of one of those daytime television programs where everyone had evil twins and people inexplicably came back from the dead. 

“Captain,” Dee said. “A word?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

Karl made his way over to Dee’s station. She moved her headset away from her face and spoke in a soft voice. “Racetrack just confirmed that Athena is among the injured.” 

“I see. Thank you, Lieutenant.” He’d known, the moment he heard Racetrack’s voice he’d known. “Mr. Gaeta,” he said, turning.

“Yes, sir?” 

“You have the con.” 

Gaeta nodded. “Aye, sir.”

By the time Helo reached sickbay, the ward was buzzing with activity. He could spot Sharon instantly, the curtain around her bed hung wide open as Ishay tended to her. Walking closer, he could see the extent of the injuries—her lip was split and she had bruises forming on her cheeks and chin and the beginnings of a black eye. 

Sharon turned to look at him and smiled weakly. “Hey,” she said, as he reached for her hand and she grasped it. Karl could see numerous defensive bruises along her forearms. 

“My gods,” he murmured. “What happened?” 

Sharon’s lips tightened into a thin line. “The mission didn’t go exactly as planned.” She tried to push herself up to sit a bit straighter, but recoiled, wincing in pain. He couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. He was the one who had asked Sharon to go on this mission, thought that she might be able to talk to Kara. He hadn’t thought once that he’d be putting her in harm’s way.

“Try not to move,” Ishay warned. “You may have broken a rib.”

“ _I_  didn’t break anything.” Sharon frowned as she settled back, shifting to get comfortable.

Ishay nodded slowly. “I know. We’ll have to take an X-ray but Cottle won’t be able to look over it until he’s done.” 

Karl followed Ishay’s gaze as she looked over her shoulder towards another closed curtain. He couldn’t see the occupant of the bed, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was. He turned back to Sharon. “Did… did Kara do this to you?”

“I don’t know what happened. I found her on the  _Rising Star_ , completely drunk. I trailed her down a few hallways and was trying to talk to her, trying to convince her to come back to  _Galactica_  willingly. I grabbed her wrist and she spun around and just…”

“Just attacked you?” He’d known Kara to be a fighter, quick to throw a punch when she was mad or drunk or scared or any combination of the above, but she was never brutal. This wasn’t like her. Then again, nothing Kara had been doing these days was like her at all. 

“She was completely out of control, Karl. She was like an animal—she pounced on me and just kept swinging. I tried to block her, talk to her, anything but she was completely unresponsive.” Sharon paused, realization dawning on her face. “She wasn’t attacking  _me_ , I just happened to be there.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like… she was there, physically, but mentally? I think she was somewhere else with someone else.” Sharon shook her head. “She kept fighting and screaming even after the Marines restrained her. God, Karl, she looked absolutely psychotic. She needs help. Real, professional help.” 

Helo remembered Kat’s report from a week or so back, that she had gone completely blank on the hangar deck and screamed not to be touched. There was no doubt in his mind that the Kara who had stepped down from that Raptor after the rescue was no longer the same person who’d moved down to New Caprica—but there were still things he knew about Kara Thrace that he was sure were still the same. The first being that she thought therapy was a load of horseshit. 

“I know. But unless she accepts it, there’s really nothing we can do for her.” 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Cottle barked from behind him. “But the lieutenant is needed for X-rays.” As he pushed through, Karl could see that the doc looked far more tense than usual.

“I’ll be waiting right here,” Karl said to Sharon as Ishay wheeled the bed away. Cottle returned to the same closed off cubicle and Helo followed close behind. He pushed back to curtain as he stepped inside. 

“Who said you could come in?” Cottle said, shooting him a look. 

Helo could have made an argument that he was the XO and it was part of his job to check on the status of the soldiers in sickbay, but that wouldn’t have won him any leeway with Cottle. He turned to look at Kara as she lay in the hospital bed. She looked almost sickly pale, with her cheeks drawn and her eyelids dark. The sight of her hurt his heart nearly as much as Sharon had minutes before. 

“Physically? She’ll be all right. Blood alcohol content is high, but she can tolerate it. She’ll be hung over as hell when she wakes up, though.” 

Helo nodded slowly. “I see.”

He’d seen Kara in her weak moments before. She’d never come to him with them, but he’d more than once stumbled into the opportunity to see that Starbuck was not the bastion of bravery that she’d wanted everyone to think she was. Still, he’d never witnessed Kara at her worst before—he didn’t think she let anyone see her weakness, no matter how close they could get—but he couldn’t imagine it got any worse than this. 

He didn’t know how Cottle could possibly think she would be  _all right_.

“And… other than physically?” he prompted. 

“Well, if you’d asked me this morning, I would have said she’s a ticking time bomb.” Cottle grimaced. Helo might go so far as to say he looked worried. “Now… she’s a bunch of shrapnel that needs to be put back together.”

Kara Thrace was never the one to ask for help, to admit she couldn’t handle something because she usually could. Somehow, she always managed. But this time, something had happened. Something had happened that Kara—in her infinite capacity to survive and carry on—was completely unable to handle on her own. The combination was dangerous. 

“She’s on a saline drip,” Cottle continued. “That last bender left her dehydrated. Other than that, all we can do is wait until she wakes up. I’m going to keep her overnight and then the Marines will be escorting her to the brig, I presume.” 

Helo nodded. Charges had still not been pressed against Kara, but there was desertion, drunk and disorderly, and assaulting an officer all lined up against her. That all added up to Kara being thrown out of the Fleet. Gods only knew what would happen to her then. No, it couldn’t come down to that. He was going to have to find some way, something that would convince Kara to get herself the help she needed. 

Karl had one idea, but he needed to clear it with The Admiral first. 

*          *          *

Lee didn’t bother to change after he finished his shift on CAP, just stripped his flightsuit to his waist as he made a brisk path towards his father’s quarters. He had to give his father credit, despite his initial reaction of disappointment in Lee’s actions, he was actually proving to be an involved grandparent, even volunteering to take care of Seph when Lee was on duty. He wondered if he was, perhaps, trying to make up for his shortcomings as a father. 

Lee drew to a stop in front of the hatch to the Admiral’s quarters and knocked. He could hear a murmur of voices coming from inside before his father called out, “Come in.” He pushed open the door to find his father with a sleepy Seph resting in his arms, and Helo standing with a concerned look on his face.

“Am I interrupting something?” Lee asked.

“Not at all,” his father said with a grave tone. “In fact, this is something you should hear.”

Lee turned to Helo, already feeling a sense of unease coming over him. “What’s going on?”

“Kara’s back,” he said. 

Lee scoffed, he’d seen the Raptor return from the  _Rising Star_  but had no idea what had transpired from that point on. “I hope she’s in the brig where she belongs.” 

“Not yet. She’s in Sickbay,” he said, “and so is Sharon.”

“What happened?”

“Kara assaulted her,” Helo said. Somehow, Lee wasn’t exactly surprised—Kara wasn’t one to avoid conflict; hell, she threw herself into it. “But this wasn’t a normal fight, not for Starbuck. We all know she has a tendency to be…well… physical. But according to Sharon, she completely lost control. Corporal Venner said by the time they caught up, Kara had Sharon pinned to the ground, straddling her, beating her in the face and chest and screaming. They restrained Kara and she struggled until she just passed out.”

Remembering the crazed look Kara’d had right before she disappeared, Lee believed him. A swirl of emotions warred within him and he couldn’t quite figure out which one to go with. Instead, he asked, “Is Sharon all right?”

“She’s conscious and lucid, but…” Helo shook his head. “She took a real beating. Cottle’s checking her out now, but I doubt she’ll be flying for a little while.”

Rage won. His spine stiffened and his jaw clenched. “Godsdamnit!” he hissed. “It’s bad enough that she’s frakked herself up, but now she’s moving on to frakking up my other pilots? No,” he spat. “That’s it. She’s done.” 

Adama nodded. For once, it seemed they were in agreement. “It’s been too long. I’ve overlooked too many rules, bent too many regulations. I’ve forgotten that this is still a military unit and the Fleet is suffering for it. Kara is like family to me.” Adama turned his head, looking down at his sleeping granddaughter. “She is my family. But, unfortunately, Helo, I cannot let her slide this time. Not when we are at a pivotal moment. We need to restabilize the Fleet, and I cannot do that by breaking rules and making exceptions.” 

The penalty for assaulting an officer was confinement followed by a dishonorable discharge. It was about time, Lee thought. Starbuck may have been a member of the fleet since her return from New Caprica, but she was an utter disgrace to the position. 

“Sir. Permission to speak freely?” Helo asked.

“Granted.” 

“I think we can all agree that Kara is not herself. I believe she may be suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress. We still don’t know what happened to her down on New Caprica. Whatever happened to her has damaged her and she’s not getting better on her own.” Helo stared at Adama. “If she agrees to counseling, she should be given the chance to prove herself as a member of the Fleet.” 

“How could you possibly get her to agree to that? She doesn’t accept help and she doesn’t change,” Lee said. Ready to walk out of the conversation, he took Seph from his father and held her against his own shoulder. She fussed a bit, and Lee rubbed her back until she settled. 

“But she has changed. For the worst, which is why she needs help.” Helo turned to Lee, but it took him a moment to realize that Helo was not looking at him, but rather at Seph. “But, if Kara’s discharged,” he said pointedly, “she’s not going to want to leave her daughter behind.”

Lee’s hand froze on his daughter’s back. “Absolutely not. If she’s going around assaulting people, there’s no way she can be trusted to take care of a baby.”

“I agree with you, completely,” he said. “I think Kara knows that, too, even if she isn’t aware of it. I think that’s why she gave Seph to you in the first place.” 

“Try whatever you want, Karl, but Seph is not leaving Galactica. If you’ll both excuse me, I have to get Seph settled for the night.” He turned on his heel, leaving the two of them to sort out Kara’s fate. He didn’t want any part of it. 

Dee was in the middle of changing out of her duty blues when Lee arrived back at his quarters. “Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” she said with a weary voice and busied herself with changing. 

Lee carried Seph over to her crib and tucked her in, watching her until she fell back asleep. When Lee looked up, he realized that Dee had changed into her athletic clothes and was headed for the hatch. “Where are you off to?” he asked.

“The Dance is tonight,” she said. 

“I didn’t think you were the fighting type,” he said.

“Believe me, Lee, I’m fighting every day.” 

Lee felt a pang of guilt as he watched Dee disappear through the hatch. The door clanged shut behind her. She needed her time, her space. She’d stayed with him, even after he knew about the baby, about the affair—but they'd had one long, raw talk about it, and then barely exchanged words since. Dee was a good woman, and the last thing he’d wanted was to hurt her. 

Sighing, Lee kicked off his boots and slid off his flight suit. Once he was comfortable again he lay down on his rack staring at Seph’s crib and his mind started to wander.

He’d only been a father for three days and Seph had to be close to five months old, now. She’d been on  _Galactica_  for weeks, he’d seen her with his own eyes but had dismissed her as a brat and an annoyance—a reminder that Kara had taken his heart and left with it. But what about before? Seph had been born in a Cylon prison—the thought made his stomach churn. The frakking toasters had their hands on his little girl; countless ugly images raced through his head, things they could have done to her. But Kara had been there… Kara had kept her alive and safe and brought her home. 

Lee stared up at the ceiling with a strange, new thought racing through his mind. One he hadn’t considered before. 

Kara’d had  _his_  child. Obviously, she had and he’d known it, but he didn’t think about the implications of it before. Kara didn’t want kids—she’d said it herself. And yet, she’d had his baby. Despite marrying Sam and shutting Lee out of her life for good, she’d carried Seph, given birth in a prison, and protected her from the Cylons for months. 

Lee felt some of his anger slip away, replaced by need—the need to know what had happened on that planet to Seph.

And to Kara. 

  
*          *         *

Kara stared down at her hands, examining the red marks that covered them. The skin was criss-crossed by long scrapes, obviously made by fingernails. Some of them had gone so deep as to draw blood—how hadn’t she felt that before? Kara cringed and folded her arms across her chest, tucking her hands away and out of sight as she looked around the brig. 

The day before, Kara had woken in Sickbay with no idea how she had gotten there. Cottle had put her through a barrage of questions and when he seemed satisfied that Kara knew her own name, that Laura Roslin was President, how many fingers and had the ability to track an object with her eyes, he told her to keep her ass in that bed overnight. Not that she could particularly do anything else—it hurt too much to move and the room seemed content to dance in circles in front of her. When morning came, Cottle gave the all clear for the Marine to escort her out. The last thing she’d seen before she walked out of Sickbay was a bruised mess that looked like Athena lying in the bed across from hers, but before she’d been able make sense of it, she was being marched through the corridors to the brig. 

That was at least five hours ago. 

Kara closed her eyes, willing what happened on the  _Rising Star_  to come back to her. She remembered the Marines in the bar, she remembered being followed and needing to run but being too drunk to even walk. She remembered Sharon trying to convince her of… something. And then…

Then there was Leoben. She was in that frakking doll house on New Caprica and she’d wanted to rip him limb from limb. But, she’d been on the  _Rising Star_  and he hadn’t been there. Which meant that the marks on her hands, and the bruises on Athena’s face… 

Lords, what the hell had she done?

Well, there was no denying it now. She was well and truly frakked, she thought as she glanced at the bars. She’d seen the inside of this place more than a couple of times, but mostly it was to cool her heels after a night of drinking and a couple of punches thrown. She'd never sent anyone to sickbay looking like they'd been hit by a car, before. 

The door beyond the bars opened, and Kara rose from the cot. Her stomach tightened into a knot when she saw Karl walk in. The look on his face was not Helo—not her friend, —but more Captain Agathon—XO whose wife had just been beaten into a bloody pulp. This had been the biggest frak-ups in a long series of them, and the grim look on his face told her that the brass was tired of dealing with her shit. She couldn’t blame them. She stood straight—not exactly ready to hear what he had to say, but she figured she should muster up some shred of dignity at the end. 

However, the next words out of his mouth were the opposite of what he expected. “Sharon has decided not to press charges.”

Kara deflated somewhat, not quite sure to make of this. “What?”

“It’s her decision. I can’t really make the call. I wasn’t there, so I don’t really know what happened. I want to get your side of the story.” 

Kara folded her arms over her chest once more. “What the frak does it matter?”

“It matters because I want to know what the frak you were doing assaulting my wife,” Helo said. His tone was less accusatory than she expected. He stared at her with genuine concern and confusion in his eyes and Kara felt pinned to the spot. “Tell me. Kara, what exactly were you thinking when you attacked her.”

Frustration ate away at her. She’d been sitting here for the past five hours trying to come up with an answer to the very same question and she still didn’t have one. She didn’t have one godsdamned clue. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he asked, eyeing her in disbelief. 

“I don’t  _remember_ , all right!?” she snapped. “I don’t remember! I remember being in a bar and seeing some Marines and Athena trying to talk to me and then… and then I woke up in Sickbay! There’s your frakking answer! Happy?!”

Helo watched her with a steady gaze as her breathing started to slow again. “You need help, Kara. Cottle sees it. I see it. The Admiral sees it. And we just want you to get better.”

And there it was. “Help? What, like a shrink?”

“Exactly.”

Kara scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Most shrinks are more frakked than their patients are.”

“I thought you might say that,” he said, solemnly. “Sharon isn’t pressing charges, but it’s conditional. The Admiral has decided you will serve the minimum sentence for AWOL—one month in the brig. During that month, you will be seeing a psychologist. Dr. Stoffa has worked with members of the fleet before and is willing to take on your case.” 

Lords, but he had thought this out. “What if I don’t want to?”

“Then assault charges will be pressed. Six months in the brig and then you will be released from the service with a dishonorable discharge.” 

Kara sat down on the cot, the room suddenly feeling small. Things were supposed to be better when she got back to  _Galactica_ , back home. But she’d come back and it hadn’t felt like home and now, she was about to get thrown out. Kara racked her brain for a next move. 

 _”What are you doing here?” Kara asks._

 _Sam hovers in the entrance to her tent, not quite in but not quite out either. It’s not the first time he’s come by, but it’s the first time he’s actually tried to stop in. “I was in the neighborhood.”_

 _“Cut the crap, Sam,” she says. “What part of ‘it’s over’ isn’t getting through your thick skull?”_

 _She’s six months pregnant now and no amount of baggy clothing can hide that fact. Moving around is becoming harder, and it is impossible to bend over. Some days she can’t stand to see her own shadow._

 _“I’m not allowed to be worried about you?” He takes a step inside and she turns her back to him._

 _“I already told you, I don’t need any help.”_

 _“Raising a child? Completely alone?”_

 _“I’m fine,” she lies._

 _“Now who’s being thick?”_

That was the answer. Hell, she wouldn’t even have to go looking for Sammy. If she showed up on the  _Salpica_  with Seph, sooner or later he’d find her offering to be the dad no matter who the biological father was. Good to have a fallback. “Fine. Seph and I will just find someplace else to live.” 

Helo’s expression shifted, questioningly. 

“What?” she asked.

“Listen, Kara,” his tone softening as he approached the bars. “Do you really think that’s the best idea?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look at where you are, Kara. Look at what got you here. You were missing for three days before anyone could find out where you are. You left your daughter—”

“I was just... I freaked out, she wouldn’t stopped crying and I just… I freaked. Okay, it was a mistake. But I’m not going to do it again.”

“And what about the next time you get… freaked out? What about the next time it becomes too overwhelming?”

“I’ve got a backup plan,” she insisted. Her backup plan, she realized, strongly resembled this first plan, with a minor change to the key players. 

“…Kara, you left Seph with Lee. You’ve spent so long keeping her a secret from him, and yet he was the first person you turned to. Why?”

“Because I couldn’t take it anymore and he was there!” 

“You couldn’t take it anymore and now you want to up and take her and go start a civilian life?” He raised an eyebrow. “You love that little girl, Kara. I can see it on your face when you hold her. I think you wanted Seph to be safe and cared for, and I think you knew you couldn’t care for her the way she deserved to be taken care of—”

“Gods, would you shut up!?” she snapped as she sank down onto the cot. The worst thing about Helo was that he was so frakking _right_  all the time. She had no right taking care of her daughter right now—not when she was blacking out, attacking people with no memory of what happened. Who’s to say it wasn’t going to happen again? Who’s to say that Seph wouldn’t end up another victim? “Frakking hell,” she hissed. 

Karl leaned closer, his hands closing around the bars. “It’s your decision, Kara.” 

“Frak.” She raked her nails through her hair. It had been too long since she’d washed or brushed it and her fingers got tangled in the knots. She groaned as she struggled to free her hand. She’d never had this problem before. Before New Caprica. She’d been the CAG, the best pilot in the fleet, she’d had Lee and Helo and Sharon and the Old Man. She’d seen Earth in the Tomb of Athena, and knew it was out there somewhere. And what did she have now? Nothing. Just the frakked-up shadow of a life she used to have. 

Kara looked up at Karl, but quickly glanced away from the look of pity on his face. “Just call the godsdamned shrink.”


	5. Chapter 5

This was going to be a frakking waste of time. Kara had already made up her mind as the Marines marched her through the corridors to a cluster of private quarters used to house important guests aboard  _Galactica_. They came to a stop in front of one particular hatch and Venner raised his hand to knock.

"Come in," a voice came from inside. Venner nodded to Kara and she pushed the door open. The room was utterly unremarkable. One rack, a locker, a metal table and two chairs. In one chair, a man sat, poring over a small stack of papers. He looked up as she crossed the threshold into the room. "Captain Thrace," he said, rising to his feet.

"Yeah."

He stuck out a hand, assuming that Kara would take it. "I'm Dr. Stoffa. It's good to finally meet you."

Kara looked him up and down. He wasn't a particularly tall man, medium build, with dark skin and a stubbly beard. This was the man she was supposed to be spilling her guts to, telling every last detail of her imprisonment on New Caprica, or whatever the frak she was supposed to be doing to be deemed sane enough not to get kicked off  _Galactica_. After a long moment, he withdrew his hand and shoved it into his pocket. "Come," he said. "Have a seat.”

He glanced at her and took his own seat. Kara stood watching him for a long moment before she finally slumped into the chair, with her legs splayed and her arms crossed over her chest. "Look. I already know I'm frakked in the head, I don't need a shrink to tell me that."

Stoffa shrugged. "Well, we're all a little bit, to use your phrase, frakked in the head. Anyone—friend, coworker, superior officer, priest—anyone who says they are completely sane is either lying or not very smart. We all have problems. Everyone here today survived the end of the worlds. If that isn't enough to seriously screw somebody up, I don't know what is. But we're surviving.” Dr. Stoffa leaned back in his chair, watching her for a moment before he continued. “I did what I had to to survive. How about you? How’d you end up here?” 

Kara eyed the papers in front of Stoffa—no doubt her debriefing from New Caprica and numerous performance reviews were among them. "They didn't give you a two-hour briefing before letting you near me?"

"Oh, I've got the gist of what they know." He folded his hands in his lap. "But it sounds like they don't really know a whole hell of a lot. I want to hear your side of it. Why are you here?"

Kara shrugged. "It gets me out of the brig for an hour."

"A change of scenery. Is that all?"

"That's it."

"Hmn," he nodded thoughtfully. "Anything else?"

Kara didn't reply. What the hell was talking to this frak going to do for her? This session was as much a prison sentence as her time in the brig. All she had to do was wait it out and it would be over. The silence stretched on for a long period of time, how long exactly she wasn't sure. Stoffa didn't press her for anything. He could probably already tell what a hopeless case this was and wasn't going to bother wasting his time. Time kept on rolling by, minute after minute, the only sound in the room was that of his pen scratching against his notepad.

After almost an hour, curiosity finally got the better of her. "I'm not saying anything, what the frak are you even writing?"

"Not writing," he said, eyes focused on his work. "Drawing actually." He glanced up, leveling a stern look in her direction. The seriousness on his face caught her off guard. "It doesn't bother me if you don't talk to me, Kara. I've got private quarters and use of a clean bathroom for a month either way. It's practically a dream after living in a crowded room on  _Inchon Velle_. But for you, on the other hand, it should matter."

Gods, he was being a frakking ass. But she was tempted to give him points for honesty. He didn't sugarcoat a damned thing. "Well it doesn't," Kara said.

"By all means, do whatever you like. I'm sure by the end of the month, I'll have created a masterpiece." Stoffa flashed her a smile. Kara should be pissed at him. Instead, she got up and circled around him to get a look at what he was working on.

Before she could really get a good look there was a knock at the hatch and he placed the notebook face down on the table. The message was simple but clear. She wasn't showing him anything, so neither was he.

"And that would be your escort," he said. He walked Kara over to the hatch and opened it for her. "I'll see you tomorrow, Captain."

*           *          *  
Kara sat on the cot with her knees pulled into her chest. One day down, twenty-nine to go. This was going to be a very long month, she thought as she stared at the bars on her cell. Was it even frakking worth it? The doc wanted her to talk, but that wasn’t going to change a damn thing. New Caprica was over, and talking wasn’t going to take it away—how the hell was it supposed to fix the fact that she was completely frakked in the head? 

The hatch opened, and Kara looked up to see the Admiral stepping into the brig with Seph in his arms. For the first time since she’d landed in the brig—no, longer than that—Kara felt a smile cross her face. Her heart skipped a beat as she scrambled to her feet to stand at attention. 

“At ease,” Adama said. He nodded for the Marine to unlock the cell. The bars slid open and Adama stepped over the threshold, holding the infant out to her. “I brought you a visitor.”

Kara couldn’t pull Seph into her arms soon enough. She looked fine and healthy, she had definitely been well taken care of. More than that though, she felt a little heavier—she was growing. Seph’s eyes—starting to look more and more like her father’s now—turned up to look at Kara. Instantly, Seph broke out in a huge smile. She babbled excitedly, one hand waving up towards Kara’s face. The knot that Kara had been carrying in her chest suddenly broke loose and she felt like she could breathe again. “Hey, nugget,” she said. “I missed you.” 

Seph cooed contently as Kara pulled her against her chest. She put one chubby arm around Kara’s neck, and made a few nonsense sounds. Kara closed her eyes, and pressed her hand against Seph’s back. She just stood there for a moment, feeling her heartbeat against her chest.

“I think she missed you, too, Kara.” Kara glanced over at the Admiral. He was watching her and Seph with a ghost of a smile on his face. Kara had not yet met with him alone since her return from New Caprica. “She’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she said, suddenly wary and unsure of what prompted this visit. 

“She’s a bit of a loud-mouth though. Never afraid to let people know when she’s unhappy, which seems to be a good deal of the time. Lee looks like he hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep all week.” 

Had it really only been a week since Kara’d shoved her into Lee’s arms and walked out? It felt like a frakking eternity. Her heart twisted at the thought. Kara tried not to dwell on it as she looked down at Seph. “Must get that from me, huh? You been making trouble?” she asked. Seph stared up at her for a moment, blinked, and stuck her fingers in her mouth. Kara laughed, wiping some of the drool away from Seph’s mouth. 

A year ago, Kara would have thought that it would be disgusting to hold a slobbering baby—and it was. But that wasn’t important, Kara’d learned when Seph came into this world, that making sure she was happy and safe meant more than anything to her. 

Something must have shown on her face, because Adama spoke again in a soft tone. “It must have been difficult, raising her alone in a cylon prison.” 

The Old Man didn’t have a frakking clue. “It was.” Kara sat down on the cot and leaned back against the wall, cradling Seph in her arms and rocking her gently. 

An uneasy silence filled the room, too much was being left unsaid. Adama wanted something—answers, apologies? She wasn’t sure. Before he could say anything else to her, she asked, “How is Sharon doing?”

“She’s recovering. No broken bones, but she does have a concussion.” Kara closed her eyes. “She’s returned to light duty but it’ll be about another week before she can start flying again.” Kara sat in silence as her heart started to pound, remembering the bruises and marks on Athena’s face—the ones that she had made when she lost control. Another moment of uneasy silence passed before Adama spoke again. “And how about you?”

“Insane,” she said flatly. “Nothing new.”

“Today was your first session with Dr. Stoffa?” he asked.

“I went.” 

He seemed to sense the futility she’d been feeling since she left Stoffa’s quarters earlier. “Kara.” Adama’s voice was firm, warning. “Meeting with Dr. Stoffa is not a guarantee to return to the fleet. You’re like a daughter to me; I don’t want you to forget that. That is why I agreed to Helo’s proposal to let you earn your job back, but you have to  _earn_  that job back. You need to work for it. It’s not going to be easy, but I need you to remember that there are things worth fighting for.” Adama met her gaze. He was reminding her to fight, but Kara realized he was also fighting for her. “I’ll give the two of you some time alone.” 

Adama left the brig and the Marine locked the cell door once again. By this time, Seph had abandoned her toes and turned her attention to Kara’s hair. She tugged at the long, blonde strands and giggled. Obviously, she had no patience for keeping to herself while the grown-ups talked. Kara turned her attention back to her daughter, setting her down on her back on the cot beside her. Seph kicked eagerly at the air and at Kara’s hands when she held them up, smiling and laughing the whole time. Lords, she’d missed her so much.

But part of her wanted Adama to come back the moment he left. Kara didn’t want Seph to be here in the brig with her. Seph had already spent far too much of her life stuck in a prison. She should be playing with her daughter in their own quarters, on Kara’s rack, instead of this shitty cot in a filthy jail cell. 

Adama returned about an hour later, just as Seph was starting to look sleepy. Kara returned her daughter to him, and crossed her arms over her chest as he left the cell. Seph looked at Kara over Adama’s shoulder as they left the brig.

Just as the hatch clanged shut, Kara heard Seph let out a miserable cry. She sat on the cot with her knees pulled to her chest, trying to ignore the unbearable ache in her chest. 

*          *          *

 _The apartment is silent when Kara gets Seph to sleep. Leoben is gone, hopefully for a few hours. He said something about somewhere as he walked up the stairs and disappeared into the outside, but Kara hasn’t paid attention to anything coming out of his mouth in a while. She pulls a blanket over the eight-week-old baby and makes her way towards the bathroom._

 _Kara turns on the water as hot as she can make it. The bathroom fills up with steam as she sheds her clothes. Her skin burns as she steps under the spray, but at least it feels like something. She has been moving through a fog for gods only know how long. She braces her hands on the tile wall and allows the scalding water to rain down on her back._

 _Kara’s legs are about to give way beneath her and she can barely keep her eyes open. She cannot remember the last time she’s slept for more than a few minutes at a time, when she’s sure he isn’t around. Even the time to slip away for a shower is a luxury she shouldn’t be taking, but her skin is crawling and her eyes are bleary and she needs to feel something right now._

 _She doesn’t know how long she stands there. Five minutes? Maybe ten? She doesn’t even bother to really get clean, but she spins knobs and turns the shower off. Kara wraps a towel around herself before gathering up her clothes._

 _The moment she opens the door, she knows something is wrong. She knows he is here._ Godsdamnit _. He isn’t supposed to be back yet. She sprints back towards the bedroom._

 __Shit. __

 _Leoben paces the floor with her daughter in his arms. Kara feels her heart drop like a stone. At least she got here before he could take her._

 _“Put her down,” she says through gritted teeth._

 _Leoben turns her a crooked smile. She’s sure he thinks it’s charming. “She was crying,” he says._

 __No she wasn’t. She was asleep. __

 _“I heard the shower running, so I decided to check on her myself. I think she just needed some attention.”_

 _“I said put her down!”_

 _Leoben looks at the baby with a thoughtful expression on his face. “She is quite beautiful, Kara. In fact, she looks just like you. I’m beginning to understand why you’re so attached to her.” He runs one finger over Seph’s cheek. Kara thinks she’d like to snap that finger off._

 _“You don’t understand a godsdamned thing.”_

 _“She’s you.” Leoben steps closer to you, eyes flickering. “A part of you. You think that if you can shelter her and protect her it will undo everything that has happened to you. You will have created something and you will justify the pain you have gone through. And that is beautiful."_

 _She doesn’t take a step back. “Give her to me now, before I break every bone in your frakking body.”_

 _It’s an empty threat and he knows it. He’s made it perfectly clear—if she hurts him, he takes_ her _, and Kara isn’t going to put Seph’s life at risk._

 _“Shh.” Leoben hushes her. “I think she’s asleep.” He turns away and settled Seph back into the bed, covering her with the blanket. He looks back to Kara. “Maybe, I was wrong.”_

 _Kara watches warily as he moves towards her. What’s his angle? “Wrong?”_

 _“I was worried that an attachment like that might hold you back from your destiny,” he says. “But maybe she will help you learn.” He’s in her space now, but she refuses to back down, even as her heart pounds in her chest. He raises a hand to touch Kara’s cheek and she resists the urge to bite him. “There’s time still, Kara. I don't want there to be animosity between us, not about your child. I want us to be a family, Kara. You, me and our child." He glances back towards her daughter._

 _"Seph has a father!" Kara snaps. "And he sure as hell isn't some frakking toaster."_

 _An amused smile crosses Leoben's face. "Where is he then?" he says softly. Kara has no choice but to take a step back. He's too close. "He must not be that invested if you were living alone. I'm here for you, Kara. I think that makes me a more qualified father than whoever may have given some extra genetic material to create that child."_

 _She thinks of Lee, jaw set and eyes burning, and stumbles back until she's got nowhere else to go. Her back pressed against the wall, Leoben closes the gap between them and his hand cups her face. He touches her like a doll, like his play thing._

 _"What are you doing?!" she barks._

 _"Shhh," he murmurs. He's so close now, her vision blurs. "We don't want to wake the baby."_

 _The room goes airless as he presses his lips against hers. "I want to make love to you," he says softly. "We're a family now, Kara."_

 _He's a lunatic. A delusional toaster that's created a prison as a house and a prisoner as a wife. And baby makes three. Kara looks over his shoulder towards where Seph lies on the bed. Leoben doesn't say it, but she knows how it would go. If she refused him, Seph would disappear. Maybe, this time, for good._

 _Leoben’s hands on her make her gut churn. She’s shaking as he cups her face, eyes seeking hers. She closes her eyes and he seems to take it as permission to kiss her again. She stands frozen under his touch, doesn’t move and barely breathes. Somehow, she knew it was going to come to this. He’s been pushing, here and there, to see exactly how much Seph’s life is worth to Kara. Is it worth letting him stroke her hair? Touch her shoulder? Hold her hand? Is it worth letting him frak her?_

 _Kara doesn't fight back, her arms hang useless and leaden at her sides. No matter how much she kicks or bites or screams, she realizes he has the power to take away everything. She stands rigid against the wall, as his hand goes for the knot of her towel. Kara's heart jackhammers in her chest and her body trembles. Lords of Kobol, she thinks, just let this be over with soon._

 _The towel never comes away. Her eyes open when she realizes he is no longer touching her but standing back a few feet watching her with a curious and somewhat disappointed look. "I love you, Kara Thrace," he says as he turns to go. "You have to want it, too."_

 _Kara stays pressed to the wall listening to his footsteps fade towards the top of the stairs. Her legs, which have yet to stop trembling, finally give way and she slides to the floor. She hears the door close and lock and beyond that the faint clang of bars banging shut._

 ___*          *          *_

“Cots in the brig not so comfortable?” Stoffa asked, after Kara walked into his quarters. 

She didn’t a need mirror to know she looked like hell. She’d woken up screaming after barely an hour of sleep and had been awake ever since. “No shit. How’d you figure that one out?”

The doc shrugged. “Just looks like you didn’t get a lot of sleep.” That was happening long before she landed herself in the brig, Kara thought. “So, are we in for another day of silence or would you answer if I asked you how you’re feeling today?” Stoffa asked, kicking out a chair for her. 

Kara stood, folding her arms across her chest. “I’d say I feel like hitting something.”

A thoughtful smile crossed his face. “I assume you have a gym on this ship,” he said. Kara nodded slowly. “And I assume that gym has a punching bag?” She nodded again. “Then I think we just found something for you to hit.”

The Marines escorted Kara and the shrink down to the gym. Luckily, for them, it was empty when they arrived. “When was the last time you came down here?” 

Kara shrugged. She’d tried to come down once or twice shortly after her return. Every time she’d come, however, she’d seen Karl and Lee hitting the weights and the bike and a flicker of irritation drove her away. Well, neither of them were here now. Kara approached the heavy bag hanging in the corner.

 _I want us to be a family, Kara.._

Kara’s fist lashed out against the bag. Her wrist jammed and she shook it out. 

Leoben. Son of a bitch had been a minute away from raping her when he’d walked out. And she would have frakking let him do it. She threw another punch, followed quickly by a third. The duct tape stung her knuckles, rubbing the skin raw with each jab and cross.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” the doc asked.

Kara shook her head. “Doesn’t frakking matter.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Gods, why the hell did shrinks have to ask such pointless questions?

“Be glad I’m punching the bag and not your face,” she growled. 

The son of a bitch laughed. “Well, that is an improvement.”

The next five hits were for him. She was pretty sure the last one made her knuckles bleed. “It hurts,” she grunted, but she didn’t stop. “I need it to. It takes my mind off those godsdamned nightmares.”

“Nightmares?”

“You gonna frakking parrot everything I say?”

“No, just that we work problems out in our dreams. Something bad happens, we dream about it. Something really bad, then nightmares. The more you push things out of the waking world, the more they show up in dreams. That’s just the way it works.”

Kara paused, remembering how she froze up on the flight deck while Kat was tearing her a new one. She remembered how she didn’t remember attacking Sharon and had attacked someone else. “I don’t even have to be asleep to have them anymore,” she muttered.

“You’re having nightmares while you’re awake?”

Kara stared at the punching bag, her hands resting against the sides. “I’ll just be going somewhere or talking to someone and then…” Jab. “I’m not wherever and he’s back and I don’t know what the hell is going on. Who’s real. Where I am.”

“It feels like you’re still back on New Caprica.” 

Maybe the doc wasn’t as slow as she thought. Her arms were starting to burn, landing blow after blow. She focused on it, let it consume her.

“Nightmares and flashbacks are very common after a traumatic event, Kara.” 

“Well they’re frakking stupid,” she hissed. “I’m not there anymore, why the hell can’t my head get that straight?”

“Memories are like photographs. You know how sometimes it gets to be the afternoon and you can’t remember what you had for breakfast? It’s routine, typical. You don’t take photographs of the boring things. You take photographs of the things that stand out, things that are out of the ordinary—things that struck something within you, made you feel something. You were held prisoner for four months, correct?”

“Yes,” she muttered. Good lords she was out of shape. Her blows were losing their power, muscle fatigue was starting to set in. 

“Well that’s four months worth of vivid memory photographs that need to be sorted through. You can shove them aside and put them on a shelf, but you’re never going to forget that they are there. So you can either hide from them, or you can go through them.”

Kara turned back to look at Stoffa. It was the first thing he said that had made any sense to Kara. All she had been doing was trying to forget what had happened and jump back into her life, and all of it was turning into a big frakking mess. “I just want to get the son of a bitch out of my head,” she said. 

“Your captor?”

Kara snorted, wiping a trickle of sweat away from her face. “He’s a frakking cylon,” she said. “I could kill him every frakking day if I wanted to, but he’d be back in a few hours. Every single time.” 

"Did you?" he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. "Kill him every day?"

"No," Kara grunted. "Four times before I stopped."

"What made you stop?"

"After Seph was born... it wasn't worth it anymore."

 _That child only would’ve held you back. I did what I had to do, for your sake._

Kara slammed her fist into the heavy bag again. Pain rippled from her wrist. "The last time... he took her. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was gone. Motherfrakking toaster took her from me while I was asleep. Made it perfectly clear, if I did anything to him he was going to... he was going to kill my daughter."

Sweat ran down Kara's cheeks. Her breath hitched as she brought up her hand to wipe the streams away when she realized it wasn't sweat at all, but tears. Silent as they were, they kept coming. She wiped furiously at her face, what the hell was crying going to help?

"That's a lot of power he held over you," Stoffa said.

"I just..." Kara sucked in a deep breath trying to control herself. "...wanted her to be safe."

Stoffa shrugged as he walked over to her. "No wonder you're having nightmares." Kara looked at her feet as he watched her face. "I take it you haven't been sleeping very well, in general. You're a pilot. What does it look like when someone gets in the cockpit exhausted?"

Kara raised an eyebrow as she raised her head. "They get sloppy. Make dumb mistakes. Can't think through a maneuver."

"Not a good look," he said. "If you're tired you can't think. If you can't think, everything else falls apart. Can't work, can't fly, can't take care of the people who are important to us."

"...I know."

Stoffa was silent for a moment with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Well, if the nightmares are making it impossible to sleep, and no sleep means you can’t function, then we need to work on that. I can't wave a magic wand and make the nightmares stop, but we need to figure out what will help you to relax enough that you feel safe falling asleep. What do you think?"

"I take it booze is not an option?" she muttered.

"Not as such, no," he said with a smile.

Kara'd had no idea what the hell she'd expected going into this. Everything was such a frakking mess, she didn't have any clue how she was supposed to start fixing any of this shit. Figuring out how to get some sleep, though, seemed like something she could do.


	6. Chapter 6

Thirty days went by terrifyingly fast, and yet, unendlingly slow. 

 **Day 3**  

 _I want you to be comfortable here. This is your home now. Our home…_

 _…That child had no place in your destiny, but if you really want one so badly Kara, we could make one together…_

 _…I want to make love to you. We're a family now, Kara…_

A cold sweat beaded Kara’s forehead as she bolted awake. She glanced quickly around the room, searching for Leoben. It took a moment for her to register the metal bars and flimsy cot and remember that she was in the brig aboard  _Galactica_. 

The guard didn’t even bother to look up at her. It was the same Marine who’d been sitting there for a few hours before she even fell asleep. 

Kara settled back against the cot and stared up at the ceiling. Her heart raced—another night, another nightmare. How long had she slept this time? Looking at the guard she realized the shift hadn’t changed yet, she couldn’t have slept more than two hours at the most. Not enough to fight the running on empty feeling she’d carried with her for so long. 

Her thoughts flicked back and forth, skipping from nightmare to nightmare like a television changing channels. She tried to clear them away, tried to remember what the shrink had told her about relaxation. He’d talked about a couple of techniques to make her feel calmer, but she’d been too preoccupied with the equipment in the gym to really pay attention to him. She remembered something about deep breathing. 

Kara lay there, trying to slow down her breaths, even though it felt like the room was quickly running out of oxygen and she couldn’t get enough of it. The silence in the brig was only disturbed by the 0200 shift change. The two marines exchanged a short greeting and the room grew silent again as the new guard started to work on a crossword puzzle in an old magazine. She listened to the sound of a pen scratching on paper for another two hours until she fell asleep. 

She slept soundly until the sound of keys in a lock jolted her awake. Corporal Venner opened the door to her cell. 0800. Four hours. “Morning, Captain,” he said. He placed a tray of what appeared to be stale bread and some sort of protein matter next to her on the cot. 

 _Noise jostles Kara out of a foggy sleep. Her neck is stiff from having slept at an awkward angle. She’s refused to go anywhere near anything resembling a bed, but after four days of captivity without rest, she finally passed out on the couch._

 _”Morning, sleepyhead.”_

 _She looks up to see Leoben carrying a tray of food. Eggs, bacon, and juice. Gods, actual food. She can’t remember the last time she’d had a decent breakfast—probably before the Colonies were nuked. Where the hell did he get this? She decides she doesn’t want to know._

 _“Get the frak out of my face.”_

 _Leoben shakes his head. “You need to eat something, Kara. And after all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”_

 _Kara feels the baby shifting inside her. Shit. Her hand unconsciously drifts towards her stomach. She isn’t keeping her strength up. She’s been so frakking stubborn, refusing any food that the toaster has given her, but the only one she’s hurting now is herself… and the nugget._

 _She sits up awkwardly, trying to get comfortable as she looks at the tray on the coffee table. She notices that he’s given her a metal fork and knows exactly where she’s going to stick it as soon as she’s done eating._

 __

“Captain?” Venner’s voice snapped her back into reality. _Frak_. Her hands were shaking as she raked her fingers through her hair. “Captain?”

“What?” she snapped.

“I just thought you might like to eat your breakfast as opposed to staring at it.” Kara looked back towards the tray of unappealing food. She grabbed a piece of bread and shoved it into her mouth. It tasted as bland as it looked. “Hurry up,” he said. “It’s almost time for your appointment.” 

* * *

 **Day 7**

Kara lapsed into silence about fifteen minutes into the seventh session with the shrink. He had gotten her to talk about the day that she had been captured. She’d told him that a couple of chromejobs had shown up at her tent. At eight months pregnant, she hadn’t been in any position to take them on or run. She’d ended up shoved into a vehicle with a sack pulled over her head and no idea where they were taking her. 

“Wasn’t there anyone looking for you?” he’d asked. Kara’d shrugged. “What about Seph’s father?” 

Gone. Didn’t give a flying frak. Up on  _Pegasus_  with his wife and his command and he didn’t need it all screwed up with a bastard child. “No. He was gone long before the cylons showed up.”

“So you were alone? 

 _I shouldn’t have been._  Kara thought. 

Which finally led to Kara stared into space, listening to the pen scratching on the paper. “It’s your choice,” he reminded her. That was one of the shrink’s favorite things to tell her, and she almost hated him for it. Because apparently, whenever she had a choice about talking or not, she usually ended up saying  _something_. 

Kara gave the impression of having found something endlessly fascinating on the floor. Stoffa looked at her for a long moment and returned to doodling in his notebook. 

After about five minutes she finally looked up. “What the hell are you drawing?” 

He studied his own paper for a moment trying to come up with words. “I can’t really say what it is, you have to see it and make sense of it yourself,” he said. 

“Can I see?”

“Sure. But I warn you, it’s not finished yet,” he said, before turning the notebook and passing it over to her. 

Black lines crisscrossed the page, almost like a maze but infinitely more intricate. The series of lines swirled and bent crashing in on themselves before turning away without ever touching. They looked lost. Even for a doodle, it was striking. “It’s beautiful,” she said, handing it back to him. 

Stoffa smiled. “Thank you. I minored in art at the University of Picon. If I hate the cylons for anything,” he said, his expression turning serious, “it’s all the culture they’ve destroyed.”

The museum at Delphi flashed in Kara’s mind, all the statues and urns left to ruins in a nuclear wasteland. She turned to the doc and nodded slowly. “I used to paint. Never studied how, just sort of figured it out on my own.”

“Were you any good?”

Kara shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t do it for anyone but me.”

* * *

 **Day 11**

Sharon paused outside of the brig, wondering—not for the first time—what she was doing here. She’d missed her friendship with Kara, but the assault had not been the major strain on the relationship. No, they hadn’t been close since Kara discovered Sharon’s cylon origins. Karl had been the one to convince her to go, insisted it would be good for the two of them to talk and get closure. She just wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. 

Opening the hatch, Sharon could see Kara sitting on the floor of her cell with a set of paints. They looked like they were intended for a child, but she seemed to be incredibly wrapped up in a painting she was working on. It looked like a series of concentric circles in primary colors on a background of fire. 

“Starbuck?” Sharon said, approaching the bars.

Kara looked up at her, silent for a long moment as she looked her over, no doubt studying the bruises that still darkened Sharon’s face. Slowly, she rose to her feet, folding her arms across herself. “You okay?”

“I’m all right,” Sharon muttered. Not exactly the response she had been hoping for. She didn’t know where she’d gotten the crazy idea that she’d wanted an apology from Kara. Kara rarely ever admitted to doing something wrong, and that was before whatever had made her act so crazy. “Doc Cottle has cleared me for flight, but only because they’re desperate for pilots.”

“Why? What happened?”

Sharon wasn’t exactly sure that Kara needed to be bothered with the details of the food contamination. On the other hand, it was bound to affect her sooner or later. “Recon. We need to look for a new food source before we run out.” 

Kara was silent for a long moment before she finally muttered, “Frak.” 

“Yeah. That sums it up nicely.” Silence fell over the room once again, and Sharon decided that this conversation was clearly going nowhere. “Anyways, skids up in twenty. I should get going.”

She turned to leave and was nearly out the door before she heard Kara call after her. “Good hunting.”

Sharon smiled. Close enough, she thought. 

* * *

 **Day 14**

Hunger gnawed at Kara’s stomach as she stood in front of the hatch to Stoffa’s quarters. She tried to push the thought of it aside as the doc pulled the door open. He gave her a quick once-over as she stepped into his office. “Nice uniform,” he said, taking in her dress grays. “What’s the occasion?”

“They let me out of the brig to watch a body float out the airlock.” It came out snappier than she’d meant it to. Sighing, Kara took her seat and raked her fingers through her hair.

“Lords,” he muttered softly. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I can’t imagine how many funerals you’ve seen in the Fleet the past few years.”

“People die all the frakking time. It’s war.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Stoffa said. “Were you close?”

She scoffed. “Frak no. Kat was the biggest pain in my ass on this ship.”

“And yet you went to services for her. Maybe you were closer than you thought you were.”

“Yeah, well, it takes guts to let yourself get more than a lethal dose of radiation.” Bits and pieces of the speeches given at the funeral echoed in her head, how Kat stole someone else’s radiation badge after hers had gone black and stayed too long in the star cluster to locate a ship she’d lost so she could guide it out to safety. “She died a frakking hero.” 

Something other than the hunger made her stomach churn. Deep in her gut, she knew she should have been out there. The mission had been a dangerous one, and what had Kara been doing? Sitting on her ass in hack, jump after jump through the star cluster. Would Kat still be alive if another pilot had been out there taking some of the heat? 

“Gods, this is such bullshit!” Kara jumped to her feet, knocking her chair back with a clatter. 

Stoffa looked up at her with a furrowed brow. “What is?”

“This!” Kara swept her arm wide. “I’m supposed to be a frakking pilot! It’s the one thing I know I’m good at. I’m supposed to be the one out there risking my life to keep other people safe. But I quit. I mustered out and ended up on that frakking hell-hole and then the Cylons came and…” If she hadn’t moved down there with Sam… if she’d stayed with… No. She shut that line of thinking down fast. “I should have been fighting on  _Galactica_.” 

“Do you really think you would have been getting in the cockpit at eight-months pregnant?” he asked. 

“No,” she admitted. “But I still should have been up here.” 

A long silence followed. Kara suddenly knew that Stoffa was going to ask her the question she’d been refusing to answer since day one. In some way, shape, or form, he’d been trying to get Kara to talk about Lee. It was so much easier not to think about him, not to think about the night she left. “Why did you decide to leave the fleet in the first place?”

Kara shrugged a shoulder. “War was over. Nothing left to fight.”

“So you decided to settle down, get married, and have a kid?” He quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t exactly seem the type.” 

She turned her head, finding a spot on the wall to stare at. “I wasn’t exactly planning on the kid. It just sorta happened. Besides, Sam’s not even Seph’s father.”

“I’d had a feeling,” he said. 

“Any other guesses?”

“I already know the answer, Kara. It’s been two weeks and you haven’t said a word about the man who’s taking care of your child right now.” 

Kara glanced back to Stoffa, who was watching her with a curious expression. He just wanted to hear  _her_  say it. “It’s Lee, alright? Major Adama. Apollo. He’s the dad. I frakked him and I left him and I left the fleet and everything else has just been one huge frakking mess since I did! Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

Stoffa shook his head. “This has nothing to do with what I want. This is all about you, Kara.”

Kara slumped back down into her seat. “I want to fly, I want to do my job, I want my child. I just want my frakking life back.”

Stoffa smiled. “Great, now you have something to work towards.” 

* * *

 **Day 18**

Helo found Kara churning out push-ups at a punishing pace on the floor of her cell. He stood for a moment studying her before she finally noticed him. “Hey,” she grunted, getting to her feet. Her face was red, but he got the distinct feeling it was not from physical exertion. 

“Hi. I was going to ask you if you knew anything about Apollo seeing the shrink—” He’d seen Major Adama storming out of Stoffa’s quarters a few hours ago. It had definitely set off an alarm, and the look on Kara’s face told him that he was right. “—but I think you probably do.” 

Kara huffed out a breath, hands planted firmly on her hips as she stared Karl down. “He’s a frakking superior asshole,” she snapped. “The doc actually talked me into having a  _chat_  with Lee.” She spat the sentence out like it would leave a bad taste in her mouth. “Some bullshit about us working together as soldiers and parents and how we had to work out our shit. And he frakking came in there and started tearing me a new one! He doesn’t have any frakking idea what Seph and I went through on that planet and he’s acting like he’s the one who got frakked up because I ‘hid his daughter from him.’” Kara scoffed. “ _His_  daughter? Can you frakking believe that? Lords! That self-righteous prick!” She huffed out a frustrated breath. “Right. I didn’t exactly run up to him and tell him to start handing out cigars, but he’s got no frakking right to…” Kara trailed off, apparently searching for words. When she came up empty, she kicked at the bars of her cell—anger dropping away into something sadder. 

Karl knew better than to smile. To be honest, he’d expected a brush-off or utter silence when he brought up the subject. Kara was not one to bare her soul, even to the people she was closest to, but to see her say something rather than turn away made him feel like his friend was coming back. 

He walked up to the bars and leaned against them. “Well, he did have some…  _input_.” 

Kara snorted. “Hardly. He knocked me up and then went back to his battlestar and his command and his girlfriend and left me and his unborn kid to the cylons. Yeah, he’s one hell of a father, Helo. And now he gets to play house with his wife and  _my_  kid while I’m stuck in the godsdamned brig!” 

“Dee left him.” 

Kara didn’t seem to process what he’d said at first, but slowly her shoulders dropped. “What?”

“About a week ago, she requested a transfer to junior officer’s quarters.” Karl had watched her go through the motions of her duties for almost a week, trying so hard to keep things together before she apparently couldn’t take the stress of living with the proof of her husband’s infidelity. 

Folding her arms over her chest, Kara sank down to sit on the cot. He tried to read the expression on her face but came up empty. “You know,” he said. “I never knew what happened between the two of you, I just knew whatever it was frakked Apollo up. He definitely was not the same person he was before the groundbreaking. I guess it’s pretty obvious now. You’re both hurting… but hurling blame at each other isn’t going to fix anything that happened. You didn’t even tell him he was going to be a father.”

He was met by the silence he’d come to expect from her since her return from New Caprica. Karl felt a twist in his gut as he watched her draw into herself, knowing he was unable to do anything to help her. She’d obviously gone through the ringer only hours ago and he wasn’t doing anything to help. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You sound exactly like the shrink,” she said under her breath. “He’s convinced that Lee actually cares about me.” 

Karl raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he does.” Kara shot him an incredulous look. “And I think you care about him. I think that might be why you’re so angry with each other.” 

* * *

 **Day 22**

Seph started crying almost as soon as she saw Dr. Stoffa. Kara shifted the little girl from her hip to her chest, rubbing her back until she started to calm down. “Sorry. The nugget doesn’t like strangers.” 

“It’s not a problem,” he said, smiling at the little girl. “So this is the famous Seph.”

Kara couldn’t help but grin as she wrapped her arms around her daughter. She’d never actually had the chance to introduce her to anyone before. When she’d returned to  _Galactica_ , she’d spent most of her time keeping Seph away from anyone but the daycare workers and that was only a matter of necessity. “Yeah, this is my girl. The Old Man dropped her off with me about an hour ago, so I could bring her along.” 

“She looks just like you.”

“That’s what everyone says.” 

Snuffling softly, Seph turned her head to look at Stoffa. “Hello, Seph,” the doc said. “You don’t have to worry, I’m a friend.” Seph hiccupped and buried her face against Kara’s neck again. Stoffa grinned. “She definitely trusts you.” 

She should, Kara thought. After everything she’d done to protect her when she was born. “It’s what I’m supposed to do, right? Keep her safe? I don’t know a damned thing about raising kids, so I’m just winging it.” 

Stoffa took his usual seat. “I don’t think anyone really knows how they’re going to raise a child until they’re actually doing it. There are a million ways to do it.”

“Yeah, and a million ways to do it wrong,” Kara huffed before she even knew what she was saying. Stoffa quirked an eyebrow as she slumped into her seat and propped Seph up to sit on her lap. “Got to see most of those up close and personal, too.”

“If I asked what that was about would you tell me?”

“Let’s just say Momma wasn’t exactly up for mother of the year,” Kara said, hugging Seph close. Her own mother had never been violent towards Kara until after her father left, but there had been distance. Somehow, Kara’d always known she was in the way of something else. Had Momma ever looked at her and held her the way Kara held Seph, wanting to never let her go? 

Stoffa didn’t push the issue. “Have you seen Lee at all since our last meeting?” Kara shook her head. “Your sentence is going to be over in a week,” he reminded her. “The two of you are going to have to come to some arrangement as to how you’re going to take care of Seph and in order to do that you’re going to have to talk to each other.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting out, moving back to my quarters with Seph,” Kara said matter-of-factly

“So you and Lee will have a schedule? You keep her for a few days, he keeps her for a few days?” 

Kara shrugged, she really couldn’t figure out how else they were going to manage it. “Got any better ideas?”

“I do,” he said, with a remorseful tone. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Kara groaned. “What?”

“I think you should be living in the pilots’ bunk room again.” Kara was about to protest, loudly, when he continued. “You’re joining the fleet again, Kara. I think it would be good for you to be connected to the people you’re working with and fighting with every day instead of hiding in your quarters.”

“I can’t have a baby in the duty locker,” Kara snapped. 

“It’s not forever, Kara,” he said gently. “Just for a few weeks, to get you readjusted to life in the Fleet. You’ve been living alone for so long, I think it would be good for you to have people around you. People who aren’t relying on you for a diaper change at all hours of the night.” 

“Where would Seph stay?”

“Seph would stay, or at least sleep, in Lee’s quarters,” Stoffa said. “Whatever else you work out between you in terms of time spent and care-giving will be completely up to the two of you, and the arrangement can be reworked when the circumstances change. It’s not a punishment, Kara. I know you want to do what’s best for your daughter, and right now what’s best for her is that you continue to get better. I honestly don’t think you’re going to do the best for her caring for her alone, and you staying in empty quarters when it’s not your turn to have her.” 

Kara hated it when the doc was right about things. She sat in silence for a few moments before grudgingly muttering that she’d think about it. 

* * *

 **Day 25**

Lee sat slumped over his desk. He’d finally gotten a fussy Seph to doze off after almost two hours of pacing and rocking her. He stared down at the supply run roster for the next week. He was trying to space out everyone’s runs evenly, no one wanted to be down on that humid, putrid planet but it needed to be done. He was organizing all supply ops from the ship, opting to stay with his daughter instead of running them from the ground. 

He was about half-way through filling the slots when there was a knock. He rose from his seat and opened the hatch, surprised to find Dr. Stoffa standing in the corridor. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“I’m just finishing some paperwork,” he said, Lee said, holding himself stiffly in the doorway. 

“I can come back later,” he offered, gesturing to leave. 

Lee shook his head, but he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around why Kara’s shrink was dropping in on him instead of on his patient. “I just wasn’t expecting company.” He shifted and moved aside. “Come in.” 

Stoffa smiled as he walked inside and surveyed the quarters. His gaze lingered for a moment on Seph’s crib and he turned back to Lee. “It’s been a while since our last conversation.”

Lee felt heat rise in his face. The last time he’d met with the doctor and with Kara the talk had quickly dissolved into a screaming match that Lee didn’t even wait around to resolve. Things with Kara were frakked beyond repair. “Sorry. That was not one of my finest moments.” 

“As far as arguments go,” the doc said, “That was one of the better ones I’ve seen. Almost like watching a tennis match. If nothing else, you both know how to aim your blows and your timing… well, you know each other well.” 

Or they had at one point. Lee shook his head. “As fascinating as this has been, is there a reason you’re here?”

“Actually there is. I’m sure you know Captain Thrace is going to be released in the next few days and returning to active duty.”

“Light duty,” Lee corrected him. “Her flight status is still revoked and won’t be returned until she passes a flight exam, which won’t be administered until we’ve completed the mission on the algae planet.”

Stoffa nodded. “That’s fine. I’m not here to discuss the finer points of her release. That’s something for the Fleet to work out. What I need to know is if the two of you are going to be able to work together without every conversation turning into a… tennis match.” 

Working alongside Kara was going to be difficult, but if she could follow a damned order for once, it might just work out. “I’m going to treat her just like every other pilot under my command.” 

Stoffa studied him with a bemused expression. “Excuse me, Major, but are you in the habit of procreating with your subordinates?”

Lee’s eyes narrowed at the statement. Lords, now the doctor was accusing him, too. “I wasn’t her superior officer then.”

“No,” Stoffa assured him. “But you are now. You’re in a position of power in her life, you’re the father of her child, and you’re obviously hurt by the fact that she hid that child from you. How do you intend to handle it?”

Lee honestly had no idea how to deal with Kara anymore. She had changed so much from the person he used to know. They should be closer now, he thought as his gaze drifted towards Seph’s crib. Instead, they were farther apart than they had ever been. “Gods, Kara let me think for weeks that Seph was someone else’s child. I hated the sight of her. I hated my own godsdamned child… If Kara had her way, I never would have known I was a father! If she hadn’t—” Lee could feel a bitter edge cutting into his voice and he quickly silenced himself.  _If she hadn’t left…_  Lee sucked in a deep breath trying to calm himself. 

“What did she do?” Stoffa asked, with a slight tilt of his head. 

Lee’s jaw clenched, eyes squeezing shut as memories came racing back—waking up alone and naked and covered in dirt, making his way back to the town only to find that Kara had… Lee turned away, moving towards his chair. “I loved her,” he admitted. Anger bubbled within him, but also relief. He’d held that inside him for so long, and the only times he’d uttered it before it had been laughed at and stomped on. “I loved Kara Thrace. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. And I had the crazy idea that she might actually love me, too.”

Lee sank down into the chair, the weight of everything crashing down on him as he recounted the night of the groundbreaking ceremony. He should still be angry, he thought, he’d held onto that anger for so long, kept it as a companion and a guide. But he wasn’t. Right now he just felt alone. “…and by the time I got back to the town the next morning… she was married…” Lee glanced back up to Seph, and the question that had plagued him for the last month cropped up again in his mind—why?

“But now I find out that we made Seph… and Kara was down on that frakking planet when the Cylons came… I still don’t know what the hell the toasters did to my daughter.”

Stoffa slid down into a seat across from him, nodding slowly. “Well, you do have one person who can answer that.” 

* * *

 **Day 26**

Kara was sitting on the floor of her cell, painting, when Lee walked in with Seph perched on his hip. She was so absorbed in the series of concentric circles that she was working on that she didn’t even look up until Lee spoke. “This seems familiar,” he said. Anger and accusations had gotten nothing from Kara the few times they’d spoken, so instead he tried an olive branch. 

Kara turned to look up at him, staring up at his face for a moment as though she couldn’t believe he was standing there. She slowly rose to her feet, wiping at a smudge of blue and red paint that crossed her cheek. “What are you doing here, Lee?”

He nodded to the guard to unlock the cell before glancing down at Seph. “She was having a hard time settling. I thought she might want to see you.” 

Once the bars were open, Lee stared at the empty space that had been created. Oddly, he felt like he was about to cross into enemy territory. He let out a deep breath, as he forced his feet to carry him over the threshold. A few short strides brought him toe to toe with Kara Thrace, her eyes locking onto his. For a moment, he wondered if this was a terrible idea. But rather than turn to leave, Lee passed Seph into Kara’s arms.

Seph babbled happily as Kara pulled her close. “You giving your dad a hard time, nugget?” Kara tapped a finger against Seph’s nose, with a smile on her face. “Good job, keep it up.” 

Something in that moment was so surreal that Lee couldn’t help but grin. Loud, swaggering, frakked-in-the-head Starbuck was practically cooing to a baby–their baby. The incongruity of the image was just too much for him. Kara shot him a questioning look, but Seph reaching up to touch the paint smudged along Kara’s cheek drew her attention away.

“You like the paint?” Kara asked. “Here, lemme show you.”

Lee stood back, arms folded, watching as Kara sat on the floor with Seph propped between her legs. She dipped Seph’s chubby little fingers into the yellow paint and helped her smear it across a piece of paper. Watching the blonde little baby and the blonde woman together, Lee felt a sudden wave of warmth. Love, even—between mother and daughter. The two of them belonged together. Seph and Kara. His little girl and… 

He shook his head, suddenly feeling foolish. Was there any hope for them to be a family? Lee had no idea. It was the first time he and Kara had been together without taking off each other’s heads, since… since the night they made Seph. 

Unfolding himself, Lee crossed the cell and knelt down in front of the painters. “What are you working on?” he asked. 

Laughing, Seph reached out and patted Lee’s leg leaving a big yellow handprint bright against the dark blue of his uniform. Kara grinned at Lee’s indignant expression. He rubbed at the mark, but only succeeded in creating one big yellow smear across his thigh. 

“Need a hand with that?” Kara asked, lips quirking upward. Lee couldn’t help but smile as well. 

Lee stayed with them for the better part of an hour, until Seph had finally gotten tired and nodded off. He cradled Seph in his arms, watching Kara fold her arms across her chest. “Thanks for bringing her,” she murmured. 

“Sure,” he said. 

The air had changed, since Seph had fallen asleep. In the newfound quiet, a million unanswered questions hung in the air. Lee didn’t want to ruin this one peaceful memory with a fight, but he knew he couldn’t leave without asking something. “Kara?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?” She gave him a wary nod. ”Why did you name her Seph?”

Kara’s spine stiffened slightly. “It’s short for Persephone.” 

It took a moment for the connection to hit him. Lee was not religious, but he knew the myth quite well. Persephone was ripped from her life when she was abducted by Hades to be his queen. Tricked by the god of the Underworld, Persephone had eaten a few pomegranate seeds—damning her to return to the Underworld every year. The myth had been used to explain the winter and the dying of crops thousands of years ago, but suddenly Lee realized something that he had not quite grasped before.

 _…held in solitary confinement until the fleet’s return. A single cylon was assigned as her guard._

Kara’s time on New Caprica had been a living hell, trapped in the underworld by Hades.


	7. Chapter 7

Kara paused outside the hatch of the bunkroom, duffle bag slung over her shoulder. In the middle of the shift, there shouldn’t be too many people in there. Good, she thought. But that wasn’t the point of this arrangement. She was supposed to be with the other pilots—with her fellow pilots—again. These were the people she had fought and sweat and bled beside so many times before and she’d be damned if she couldn’t do it again. 

Pushing the door open, Kara could only see Ricochet changing into workout clothes. As she walked inside, Hot Dog poked his head out from his rack where he was napping. “You’re back?” was all he asked. 

For a moment, she found herself caught off guard. She wasn’t sure what she had expected walking in, but for some reason she’d thought it would be…well… worse. “What?” Kara said as she headed towards the only empty rack. “Thought you could get rid of me that easy?” She dropped her duffle onto the thin mattress with a thud. 

“Just heard a lot of rumors is all,” Ricochet said, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. Adrienne “Ricochet” Marus was the only other pilot to have failed Kat’s remedial flight class. Cylons had frakked up her hand in the detention center and she’d lost the motor control needed to fly a viper. Seemed like she was doing better now, though. “Starbuck’s lost her mind, Starbuck’s locked up on the Astral Queen—” 

Kara shrugged a shoulder as she unzipped the bag, filled with the contents of her abandoned quarters. Helo’d packed up her stuff for her, so she wouldn’t have to face cleaning out her old quarters by herself. “Pilots talk shit, trying to one-up whatever dirt the last one had.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Richochet said, walking up to her. “A lot of stuff happened on that planet that would make anyone lose it.”

“Yeah, being locked up by the Cylons will do that to you,” Kara muttered. Glancing back towards Hot Dog’s rack, she could see he already resumed the nap he had been taking. 

Turning back, Kara saw a look of guilt sweep over Ricochet’s face, but Adrienne quickly shook herself out of it. She offered Kara a small smile. “Anyways, it’s good to have you back. I’ll see you later.” She turned and left quickly, leaving Kara alone. 

Kara zipped open her duffle bag, determined to get herself settled in. This used to be home, she needed to make it home again. She dug up her uniforms, putting them away in her locker, neatly hung. Beneath them, her hygiene kit, a music chip of her father’s she hadn’t played in years, and various other things that had been left behind. Not surprisingly, none of Seph’s things had made their way into the bag. Lee must have gathered them up when he had become the full-time parent. She had to give him credit for that. 

At the very bottom of the bag, the figures of Artemis and Aphrodite lay wrapped in a worn brown cloth, which she hadn’t touched since long before she went to the brig. When she unpacked them after the Exodus, she had put them in a drawer and forgot about them. The Gods had ignored her pleas for months while she was down on that planet, now it was her turn to ignore them. 

Kara looked over her shoulder and surveyed the bunkroom. It was silent and empty but for the sound of Costanza’s snoring. She turned back to the small bundle and unfolded the cloth. Removing the cold bronze from its wrapping, Kara held one statuette in each hand. They were completely unchanged, she thought, running her thumbs over them. Every dent and nick was the same as she remembered them. 

It had been months since her last prayer. She didn’t remember when she had stopped—stopped praying for strength, stopped praying for guidance, stopped praying for freedom—but at some point she’d believed the gods had stopped listening—started to believe that maybe they were cruel enough to bring a child into the worlds for no reason other than to die at the hands of the cylons. 

But here she was, back on  _Galactica_ , and in time, her prayer had been answered.

“Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer,” she murmured under her breath, voice breaking on the words she hadn’t said for so long. “I’ve frakked up a lot of things in my life, but I can’t afford to screw this up. Not this time. Please, I need your guidance again. I can’t do this alone.” She drew in a steeling breath as she put the idols aside, and hoping the gods would hear her once again. 

Kara slid the idols into her locker before folding up the now empty duffle and putting it away. She reached for her hygiene kit and left the bunkroom. Her stride was determined and strong as she made her way down the corridor. After a month in the brig Kara was eager to wash off every bit of that cell. 

The first sound Kara heard as she opened the door was the grating of Racetrack’s voice. “—back into the fleet! She’s frakking insane. And she was crazy before she went down to that planet. The Admiral is trying to get us all killed if you ask me.”

Kara’s blood boiled at her words. Where the frak did Edmondson get off? She didn’t know a godsdamned thing about what Kara had gone through, how frakking hard she had worked in the last few weeks. Kara’s nails bit into her palm as she slid silently past Skulls and up behind the pilot who stood washing her face at the sink. She wanted nothing more than to slam Racetrack’s face into the mirror but she held herself back. 

Racetrack almost jumped when glanced at the mirror and met Starbuck’s gaze in the reflection. “Wanna say that to my face?” Kara said, squaring her shoulders. 

Edmonson’s face was hard in the mirror, but Kara could practically smell the fear rolling off of her. “Yeah. You’re crazy, and you have no business being a pilot, because one of these days you’re going to get us all killed.”

Kara’s fingers itched to strike. “You know, I remember a couple of times my “crazy” stunts saved your ass along with the entire frakking Fleet.” 

“Take a look at yourself, Starbuck. Whoever you were before, sure as hell isn’t who you are now.”

Kara held Racetrack’s gaze in the mirror. “No,” she said in a cool voice. “I’m really not.” 

A long unsteady silence followed, as she watched Edmonson’s unchanging expression in the mirror. Finally, she turned on her heel and headed for the stalls, leaving Racetrack grumbling something under her breath.

Stepping into the shower, Kara stripped away her clothes and turned the water up as hot as she could make it. She gave a long sigh as she stepped into the warm spray, letting it wash over her. She let it wash away the dirt and the sweat and the last thirty days locked in the brig. She closed her eyes and breathed in the steam. 

One month ago, Kara wouldn’t have hesitated to slam Racetrack’s head into the counter—hell she’d done shit like that long before New Caprica—but she’d managed to keep herself under control. 

Now, she just had to keep it up.

* * *

A temple. A three thousand-year-old temple had been found on that boiling swamp the fleet had been orbiting for the last two weeks. According to the President, it was supposed to contain a clue on the path to Earth. Lee could hardly believe it. He thumbed through the minimal scriptural information Roslin had given him when she and the Admiral asked Lee to go down to the planet and survey the situation on the ground. 

Lee felt torn. On the one hand, he had never been religious. Scripture was nothing more than a series of outdated stories and legends used to describe phenomena that earlier people did not have the science to explain. On the other hand, he had seen proof of it with his own eyes—standing in the Tomb of Athena, looking up at the constellations in the night sky from Earth. 

Had it really been less than two years ago? It felt like an entirely different lifetime. 

The sound of boots on metal pulled Lee from his thoughts. He glanced up as Kara strode into the Ready Room. She stopped and stood at attention in front of the podium, every bit the soldier she used to be. Lee felt like he was staring at a ghost from his past as his eyes swept over her. For the first time in months, she was dressed neatly in her duty blues. The sunken, exhausted expression that she’d had when she’d returned from New Caprica had faded. Her eyes met his, as she spoke in a calm, clear voice. “Reporting for duty, sir.” 

The most remarkable change, however, had been the simplest. The long, tangled mess of blonde hair was now cropped to just above her chin. She looked so much like the Kara he remembered, that for a moment the wall he had built up inside himself started to crumble. It almost felt like the last year had been a nightmare that he was just waking up from. It wasn’t, though, and there were so many reasons to stop that line of thinking before it started. “At ease, Starbuck,” he said as he stepped around the podium to face her. 

They had never been this formal in the past, but to see Kara’s genuine attempt to be the pilot she was before brought a smile to his face. Could they ever go back to the way they used to be? Her hands found their way to her hips, settling there as she stared at him, obviously bracing herself for the worst. “So, how long are you planning on having me cool my heels in the galley?” 

“Kitchen detail isn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said coolly. 

Kara shifted her weight, arms closing over her chest. ”What then?” she asked. Seemingly an after thought, she muttered, “Sir.” 

“You know I can’t clear you for piloting—the algae operation takes priority over a flight eval—but I’ve just received new orders from the Admiral and I’ve got to go down to the planet.”

“So?” she said, raising an eyebrow.

“So get into your flight suit and meet me on the hangar deck in twenty minutes.” 

Kara stared at him, dumbstruck. “What?”

He’d been considering how to get her back to flying as soon as she was released from the brig. This seemed to be the best course of action. He couldn’t put her out in a Viper, not without a proper flight test. But he knew she still had the chops to fly, and taking a Raptor down to the planet seemed to be the simplest and easiest scenario. And gods forbid if he need to, he could take over the controls if worse came to worst. 

He held out a sketch of the Temple of Five, copied from the Sacred Scrolls. Kara’s brow furrowed as she took it, trying to make sense of what he’d just handed her. “Chief discovered this temple down on the planet. The President believes that this is a sign on the road to Earth and I’ve received orders to oversee the survey of the temple. I thought I could use the help of someone who knows scripture a little bit better than I do.”

It took a moment, but a broad grin slowly worked its way over Kara’s face. 

Thirty minutes later, their raptor was en route to the planet’s surface with Kara at the controls and Lee beside her in the co-pilot’s seat. Lee watched her as she stared out the windscreen at the blackness around them; for once, she looked at peace. The silence, however, hanging between them had Lee on edge. The rage he’d felt towards her for so long had faded away, and now he wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about her. 

There had never been a word for what Kara was to him. She was his friend, his fellow soldier, his subordinate, his partner, his family. Now, they weren’t friends anymore, but they were still family—even more so than before. She was the mother of his child, the woman who’d broken his heart, the person he couldn’t get out of his life no matter how hard he tried. After everything they had gone through, they were still sitting here side by side. 

“What?” Kara’s voice snapped him out of his daze. 

“What?”

“You’re staring.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I’m not gonna frak this up.”

“I didn’t say you would.”

“Flying this thing is like flying a frakking school bus.”

“Alright.”

“All right.” 

Lee shifted in his seat so he faced forward once again. He began to wonder why he thought this had been a good idea in the first place. The silence reigned again until the raptor rocked and rattled its way into the planet’s atmosphere, moreso than on an average atmospheric entry. 

“Coming in a little hot, don’t you think?” 

Kara glanced over at him, a small smirk curving her lips—obviously enjoying the sight. “Just announcing that I’m back.”

“Believe me, they know.”

Kara opened her mouth to reply but was cut short by Hoshi’s voice crackling over the wireless. “ _Raptor 294, Galactica, come in._ ” 

Kara arched an eyebrow at Lee as he reached for the comm. “Galactica, Raptor 294, we read you.”

“Apollo, Starbuck, the Cylons have jumped into orbit.” The words alone had adrenaline coursing in Lee’s veins. It was always a risk of this mission, and the longer they stayed in one place, the longer the Cylons had to find them. Two weeks, had evidently been too long. Kara’s face showed the same grim understanding. “We have reason to suspect they will attempt to send forces down to the planet. The Admiral has given orders for the survey team at the temple to destroy it, should the Cylons reach the surface. We cannot risk it falling into their hands. Your orders are to rendezvous—w—base camp to—”

“Frak,” Kara hissed as the line went dead. “Toasters must have jammed the freqs.” 

Lee started to punch in the coordinates for the base camp to correct their course, but Kara’s hand shot out to stop him. “Hang on.” She pointed out towards the horizon. A condensation trail streaked behind a silver glinting object barreling towards the surface. “Something’s out there.” 

* * *

“Who’s got a frakking map?” Kara demanded as she stormed into the tent at the base camp. Looking confused, a few civvies silently pointed towards a table, several others were already crowded around. With Lee at her heels, she strode up to the table making a hole for herself as she bent over it. 

“What is going on here?” Narcho demanded, trying to push himself back into his space. 

Kara leaned over the table, trying to orient herself to the positions of the base camp, the temple, and their metallically-inclined adversaries. “Cylons,” she said. “They came down in a heavy raider over this ridge here.” Kara pointed to the spot on the map. “Close enough that they could reasonably reach the temple, but far enough that they could enter undetected.”

A wave of hushed murmurs washed across the room, mostly coming from members of the Fleet. The civilians eyed her dubiously before turning back to Narcho. The former  _Pegasus_  pilot, folded his arms unconvinced. 

Lee stepped up, close to her side. “We didn’t get close enough to see how many of them there were because we couldn’t afford to be seen. Only one turkey reached the ground.” Kara continued to study the map as he continued. “Regardless, it is imperative that we stop them before they reach the temple.”

“Which they will approach through this valley here,” Kara pointed to the spot on the map. A few fleet members and civvies crowded around her to get a look. “This pass is completely masked by this ridge. From here, there’s no chance we’d eyeball their approach. It looks like our best strategy would be an—”

“—ambush.” Lee picked up her train of thought without missing a beat.

Kara turned to find him watching her, their eyes finding each other. She felt suspended in that moment—the strange sensation of something long gone coming back to her. This connection… she missed it. She missed him. “Right. What we’re going to have to do is—”

Before she could get any further Narcho cut her off and gave her a hard stare. “And just what gives you the right to come storming down here and tell us what to do? I’m in charge of this operation.” 

“Hey, if it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t even frakking know the Cylons were about to stomp all over your asses.” Kara snapped. 

“You can’t just stroll out of the brig and start giving orders,” Narcho shot back. 

“That is  _enough!_ ” Lee shouted, bringing full silence to the tent. “You want to bicker like school children, do it on your own time. We have a Cylon invasion that needs to be stopped, right frakking now.”

Narcho was not pacified by Lee’s interruption. “You might be the CAG, Apollo, but you don’t have a frakking clue what it’s like here on the ground. You can look at the map and come up with any kind of plan you want, but these are civilians. They wouldn’t know which way to hold a gun if you handed them one.” 

“Not all of us,” a far too familiar voice said. Kara looked up to see Sam Anders stepping through the crowd. Oddly enough, she was relieved by his sudden appearance. If anyone could make a bunch of civvies into a reasonable fighting force, it was him.

After ten rushed minutes of tense conversation, a plan was set into place. A series of tylium bombs would be set at a choke point in the valley. Sam and some of the others had experience making these makeshift bombs from the resistance on New Caprica. Kara’d certainly heard enough of them going off in the distance before. 

It wasn’t until they were in the middle of the valley, side by side in the reeking air, covered in dust as they set up mines, that Sam actually spoke directly to her. “So…” he said, tweaking a wire as he looked over at Kara. “It’s been a while.”

It had been a year since the divorce, six months since she’d last seen him. While she was grateful to have him on the team for this mission, she wasn’t exactly looking to make small talk with her ex. “Yeah. So?”

Sam cast her a sideways glance. “You disappeared back on New Caprica… I didn’t know what had happened to you.”

Kara shook her head. “And you thought now was the best time for a heart to heart?”

“I just… I wanted to know if you were okay, that’s all.”

Kara finally looked at him straight on. One month ago, she’d been planning to let herself get kicked out of the fleet, find this man, and hope that the next bottle brought the end to her pain. The idea seemed so frakking stupid to her now. She’d already used him enough, and figured the least she could do was stop telling him lies. “I’m not. But I’m here.” 

Any further conversation was cut short, as Lee strode up with urgency in his voice as he spoke. “Our scouts spotted the Cylons approaching. We need to get out of the blast radius.” 

“Let’s move,” Kara said, wiping dust from her hands as she got to her feet. She watched Lee turn and continue on his way to warn the others. After staring for more than a second too long, she realized Sam was over her shoulder tracking her line of sight with a grimace on his face. 

“It was Apollo, wasn’t it? Your kid’s father,” he stated it flatly and Kara turned to him, blindsided by his statement. He shook his head, “I should have figured it out sooner. The way you two were after we got married. How you never talked to him any more. Frak.” She watched him run a hand through his hair and tried not to see the hurt on his face. It was too frakking much.

“Not that it’s your business, but yeah. That’s him.” She instantly regretted her tone. Sam didn’t deserve the rage. She’d already frakked things up for him, Kara frowned and shook her head. “Sorry,” she blurted out. “For New Caprica. For wasting your time.”

Sam shook his head. “It wasn’t a waste. Not for me.”

“Still,” she said, unsure of what else to say. After a short, strained silence, Kara turned away from Sam to take her position above the choke point. She spotted Lee in the brush above her and scaled the wall, crouching down beside him. 

“You ready?” he asked, holding out an automatic rifle to her. 

“Fight ‘em til we can’t, right?” For a second, she thought he smiled at her.

Her line of thinking was cut short by the thud-clank walk of Toasters approaching. She held her breath watching as they approached the blast zone. She waited. And waited. But nothing happened. Looking over her shoulder, she could see Jean struggling with the detonation device. Something was wrong. 

Kara glanced down the wall of the valley and saw a disconnection in the detonation wire they had run up from the tylium bombs.

 _Frak!_

The two pieces of broken line were caught on a branch about ten feet down the rockface. She could connect it by hand but it would leave her out in the open until she could get back into a small crevice in the wall of the valley. But if they couldn’t stop the Cylons here, they were going to lose their opportunity entirely. They’d lose the temple, lose the road to Earth. Game over. 

Within seconds, the Cylons would be out of the blast radius. She had to move now. Sliding quickly down the wall of the canyon, Kara reached for the wires, but not before one of the Toasters had caught sight of her. A burst of bullets flew past her shoulder. 

Over the next ridge, someone fired an explosive round at one cylon, taking it clean out and buying Kara the seconds she needed to connect the lines. As soon as the wires touched, the sound of bullets drowned in a massive explosion as the tylium mines ignited.

The force of the explosion threw Kara back into the crevice. Her ankle was throbbing, twisted at a strange angle, but she could barely move despite the urgent need to run that was coursing through her veins. The explosion had taken out four of the Cylons, but two more still remained intact and a third one continued to fire while missing its lower half. 

Bullets flew in every direction, pinning her to the spot. Her skin crawled and her heart started to pound in her chest. Trapped. There was nowhere for her to go. Her vision blurred as the panic overwhelmed her. 

 _”Trying to escape again, Kara?_

No. No that wasn’t real. She wasn’t there…

 _”When are you going to realize that it’s pointless?” Leoben smiles at her like she’s a foolish child. “You keep asking your false gods to free you, but you don’t see that they’re what’s holding you back. Someday you will see, that’s why God brought you here. We’re going to be happy together Kara. This is where you need to be.”_

 ___* * *_

  
Kara wasn’t moving. 

Lee’d watched her entire insane move from the moment he saw her sliding away. She’d frakking saved the entire mission and now she wasn’t moving—completely frozen in the small crevice. 

For once, he didn’t even stop to think. Just slid down the valley wall after her. He managed to get one arm around her waist, before losing his footing, sending both of them toppling down to the valley floor. Dimly, Lee registered a few final gunshots behind him and pain somewhere in his chest, but he couldn’t manage to focus on any of that. All he could focus on was the way Kara was screaming. 

“ _Let go of me!_ ” she hollered, hands clenched in fists beating at his shoulders. “ _Get your frakking hands off of me!_ ”

Even as she fought him, her eyes looked past him, empty and distant. Lee reached for her wrists, circling them with his hands as he held them between them. “Kara,” he said, holding her tightly, utterly unsure of what to say that could make anything any better. “Kara, come back. It’s me. I’ve got you.” 

Something in Kara’s expression changed. It was almost like watching her come back to life. Her eyes found his, dazed and confused. “Lee?”

He nodded, slowly letting go of her hands. For no good reason, he found himself struggling for air. “It’s me. I’m here.” 

After a few moments, the silence in the valley told him it was safe to move. Shifting to let her up, Lee found himself recoiling. The pain that had been so distant before, blossomed as he moved. Leaning against the valley wall, Lee’s hand flew to the source of the pain. Kara instantly reached for him, her face growing pale as she realized what he just did. “Shit,” she hissed. “You’re bleeding.”

Lee glanced down at himself and the dark red stain seeping across his chest. Breath escaped him, dark spots swimming in his vision. He must have taken a bullet from the centurion on his way down the side of the valley. Kara was saying something to someone a few feet away, but he couldn’t make it out.

All he could think before the world faded to black, was that Kara was safe, and whatever would come next would be worth it.


	8. Chapter 8

"Get out of my sickbay," Cottle muttered gruffly through his surgical mask. "Standing around like a roadblock isn't going to do him a damned bit of good." 

Kara stared at the closed curtain surrounding Lee's bed; she had been staring since they'd been ushered into sickbay by the medics when they’d returned to  _Galactica_. The image of Lee soaked in his own blood, head resting in her lap as they waited for the SAR birds to take them off the planet, swam up in her mind. Stomach churning, she forced the thought away. He was going to be fine, he had to be.

Nodding stiffly, Kara moved aside to let a nurse pass her with a surgical tray before turning on her heel and heading for the corridor. She didn't even know where she was going, but the route was familiar. Her body moved of its own accord, feet leading her down a few decks and up to a hatch she'd come to know so well.

She raised her fist to knock, pausing for half a second. She'd never just dropped in on Stoffa unannounced, always been escorted with Marines flanking her sides. But right now, with her chest tight and thoughts racing, it was the only place she felt she could be.

After three sound knocks, the hatch swung open. Stoffa stood in the doorway with two books in his hand. His eyes went wide as they swept over her, taking in the bandages and bruises on her arms and face. "My gods," he said. "Are you all right, Kara? What happened?"

Kara felt heat rising in her face as she fixed him with a firm glare. "I frakking froze up in the middle of a battle. That's what frakking happened," she fumed. She pushed past him into his quarters, hands planted on her hips. "I thought this wasn't going to happen anymore. How the hell am I supposed to go out there and do my godsdamned job if this shit keeps happening to me?” 

It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. A suitcase lay open on the doc’s rack, halfway filled with clothes and books. He was packing to leave. Of course he was. Her sentence was over, no reason now for the Admiral to keep him on board. 

She didn’t have time to dwell on the sudden feeling of chasing something she couldn’t catch. Stoffa was already talking. "You were in combat?"

"It was a frakking supply run down to that rock. I could've done it in my sleep. But then the frakking toasters had to screw the whole thing up. I got boxed in when the bullets starting flying and I couldn't move. I dropped my godsdamned sidearm, and just…" She huffed out a breath and turned her fury on Stoffa. "You were supposed to fix that!"

“Remember what we talked about at the last meeting?” he reminded her calmly. 

 _There is no frakking magic bullet. This kind of thing takes time_. She knew that, but it didn’t make it any better. “I’m sick of waiting around for my life.” 

“But you’re not,” Stoffa said. “Think about where you were a month ago… sitting in a prison cell, facing a dishonorable discharge for assaulting an officer. And now you’re back in the field. You made it through an unexpected attack, alive and whole, if not slightly banged up.”

“Yeah, but only because—” Kara trailed off, the image of blood flashing through her mind again. 

“Here,” Stoffa said. He slid out a chair for her. 

Kara’s hands dropped to her side, her heart starting up a furious rhythm in her chest. Letting out a shaky breath, she let herself drop into the seat. “I couldn’t frakking handle it out there.”

“Having a flashback is not a sign that you can’t handle your job. Something that happened in that battle set it off, and being able to face that trigger and get past it is what will help you with time.” 

“I wouldn’t have gotten past it at all if Lee didn’t pull my ass out of the line of fire!” The words rushed out and with them all the air Kara had in her lungs. It felt like she had punched herself in the chest. Lee Adama had saved her life. After everything she had done to him, he still saved her. She wanted to write it off as unflagging professionalism—never leave a man behind—but when the hell had things ever been professional between them? 

She remembered his voice cutting through the sheer terror that had gripped her.  _It’s me. I’ve got you._  Her voice dropped. “Frakking idiot got himself shot trying to save me. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking.” 

“You might have done just fine, Kara, you don’t know. Flashbacks can end just as quickly as they begin. Why don’t you tell me what might have triggered it.”

“I don’t frakking know. I ducked down because bullets were flying there was nowhere to go. I was frakking trapped there and then there was Leoben. That frakker had me, telling me I couldn’t get away and he grabbed me, and then it was Lee shaking me.” Her voice was hollow, flashes of Leoben and the firefight flickering in her mind.

“So Lee saved you.”

“Yeah, he frakking saved me. He had to. I froze up in the line of fire.” Kara stared hard at her hands in her lap, the blood on her pants – Lee’s blood. She swallowed hard.

Silence hung heavy in the room as she realized Stoffa was studying her. “Can I ask you a question?” Kara gave him a wary nod. “What did you do? After Lee was shot?”

She arched an eyebrow at him, not sure why that was important. “Helped get him to higher ground, tried to stop the bleeding while we waited for the godsdamned raptors to get there.”

“And then what? How’d you end up here?”

“He’s in sick bay. Cottle says he’s going to be fine…” Suddenly her throat went dry – the thought of him not being okay hit her hard. “Then the old bastard kicked me out.”

“It sounds like you care about him, Kara.”

Her eyes flashed angrily at him, wanting to deny it, but she couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come, because they were a lie. She did care. She still cared about Lee Adama. She’d never stopped. 

“It sounds like you’ve come a long way since I saw you last, Kara. Just think about it, Kara. Less than a month ago, the two of you were so angry and so overwhelmed that you couldn’t talk to each other. And now you’re saving each other’s lives. If that’s not change, if that’s not healing, I don’t know what is.” 

Kara stared intently at the floor. It was change. She just didn’t know where the hell it was going next, if it was going anywhere at all. When she didn’t say anything else, Stoffa started to clear up the piles of stuff drifting around the room. “Sorry it’s such a mess in here.”

“You’re going.”

The doc gathered up the books on the table and started packing them into his bag. “I am, but you know you can always get in touch with me.” Stoffa rummaged for a second before pulling out a worn business card. What used to be an address and number on Leonis was scratched out. In its place was his room on the  _Inchon Velle_. “Keep that on you. Just in case.” 

Kara shoved the paper into her pocket. “These things take time,” she muttered.

“Exactly,” he said.

***

Consciousness filtered back to Lee through a haze. The bright fog slowly cleared from a white blur to the fluorescent-lighted sickbay. He’d come to a few times before but not for more than a moment before slipping back into the darkness. This time, consciousness seemed to stick. 

Lee pushed himself up to sit and a bolt of pain struck him in the side. That’s right. He’d been shot. The memory rushed back as he allowed himself to lie back down. He hadn’t hesitated to run into the line of fire when he saw Kara, weaponless, on the battlefield. His body had moved on instinct. 

Lee remembered the way she had screamed when he grabbed onto her, the way she fought against him with eyes glazed over. It dawned on him what Kat and Sharon had meant when they said it looked like she had been somewhere else entirely. Kara’d looked like she had been stuck in some kind of living nightmare. Whatever had happened to her on New Caprica it was still haunting her. 

He’d known that for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until he saw her standing frozen in the line of fire that he truly understood. 

Staring up at the ceiling, Lee wondered what had gone on down on that planet. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it, but now it was accompanied by a dark, gnawing feeling that left him more uncomfortable than the pain. His thoughts were cut short by the sound of someone pulling the curtain back. Lee looked up to see Kara stepping up to the side of his bed with Seph perched on her hip. He couldn’t help but smile at the two of them.

“Hey,” Kara said, with a small smile. 

“Hey,” he replied. He couldn’t believe how good it was to see her alert and… herself. 

“I brought a visitor.” Kara shifted Seph from her hip and settled her against Lee’s uninjured side. She stood back, watching the two of them with a strange expression on her face—one Lee didn’t know how to interpret. He almost asked her, but a small wriggling bundle of five-month-old was vying for his attention. 

“Hey, Seph,” he said, draping one arm around his little girl.

“Bu gee da,” Seph said emphatically. 

“Is that so?” 

Seph babbled a few more nonsense sounds, until she became curious about the bandages on Lee’s ribs. Her small hand reached out for them, but Kara caught it before she managed to touch him. 

“Seph, no.” Kara held onto Seph’s hand. “Your dad’s hurt. We’ve got to let him rest and no touching.”

“It’s all right, Kara. I’ve got her. She’s fine.” 

Kara moved to step back again, but Seph caught hold of Kara’s finger and seemed intent not to let go. 

“She’s got a grip on her, huh?” Lee smiled, looking up at Kara. 

“Yeah, sometimes she just doesn’t know when to let go.” 

Kara sat down on the edge of the bed and stayed there as Seph continued to play with her hand. Kara’s gaze flicked to the bandages and back up to meet Lee’s eyes. “How’s the pain?”

“It’s okay. Better now,” he said. 

“Cottle give you the good stuff?”

“Real good.” 

“What about you? How are you doing after… back there?”

Kara stiffened, and he knew he’d gotten his intention across. “I’m okay…” she said.

The conversation lulled again. It seemed they couldn’t speak in anything other than starts and stops anymore. There were too many things to say, too many questions to ask, and no place to start. 

“Thank you.” Kara’s voice was low and soft and… sincere. “For saving me back there.” 

Lee frowned, thinking again how he’d moved without thought—just the innate knowledge that he couldn’t let anything happen to Kara. “Yeah, well, you’ve saved me enough. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a debt that needs paying off.” 

She let out a laugh. “And you’re admitting it? Lords, he really does have you on the good stuff.” 

“I mean it,” he said.

Tentative silence hung between them, but only for an instant until Kara’s hand reached out and closed over Lee’s. For a few minutes, they just sat there. Seph holding Kara’s hand, Kara holding his. For a moment, Lee thought that they were seemed like a family. 

He didn’t know how long the moment lasted, but before he knew it Seph was drooling ever so slightly on his chest. Kara drew her hand from Lee’s to wipe it away. “Were you a drooler, Apollo? Because she doesn’t get that from me.”

“I’m not sure, but she’s definitely got your mouth. There are times I’m afraid she’ll wake the entire fleet up when she cries.” 

Kara frowned, her fingers brushing over the fine blonde hairs on their daughter’s head. A distant look in her eye told Lee she was getting lost in her thoughts. There was so much he didn’t know, so much he needed to know, but he felt too tired to ask. 

“I should probably get the nugget into bed, it’s late,” she said. 

Lee watched Kara scoop the baby into her arms. “Where is she going to stay? You can’t have her sleeping in a room with the rest of the squadron.” 

Kara shifted hesitantly, running her hand over Seph’s back as she held her to her chest. “I talked to the Old Man… he said I should stay in your quarters with her. Just until you’re back on your feet. But he said he’d take her if you didn’t want—”

“No. You stay with her,” Lee said with a conviction he hadn’t known he had. After being raised in a house with a drunk mother and an absent father and a brother he had to parent, Lee didn’t want anything but the most stable life they could possibly make for her. “I don’t want my daughter being bounced around from person to person and place to place. I want her to have a family and a home.”

Kara stared at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Concern? Surprise? He couldn’t tell. But she nodded and muttered, “Yeah.” She gave him a small smile. “You just focus on getting better, because the single parent thing kinda sucks.”

“So say we all.”

***

Lee’s quarters were surprisingly less clean than Kara had expected—then again, her quarters hadn’t been so neat either when she was taking care of the nugget all on her own. She still had this image in her head of Lee, the perfect soldier with pressed uniform and not a button out of place. She’d learned time and again how wrong that image was, but sometimes she still managed to be surprised by how far off the mark she was. 

Seph dozed off the moment Kara settled her into her crib. Kara stepped back and saw that Lee had placed one of her paintings on the wall just above Seph’s bed. Kara felt warmth spreading in her chest. The painting wasn’t anything particularly beautiful or striking, just another variation on her typical pattern of concentric circles. But still, Lee had placed it on his wall. Was it for Seph’s sake, she wondered, to have a piece of her mother with her? 

Kara toed off her boots and stretched out on Lee’s rack, suddenly aware of just how exhausted the events of the last thirty-six hours had left her. Fatigue drew her eyelids closed and she quickly drifted off into a dreamless sleep. 

Several hours later, Kara was awoken by a hungry cry. It had been a long time since she’d had her sleep disrupted by a crying child. That was one thing about being a mother that she did not miss. Kara swung her legs over the side of the bed and shuffled over to the crib. “Shhh. Come on, nugget,” she said, lifting Seph from the crib. The little girl wailed and wriggled, and there would be no shutting her up until she had a full belly. It took Kara a moment, rooting around through Lee’s drawers that there were no more bottles. Lee had switched over to feeding Seph solid food—or rather mashed up algae. 

She brushed aside the strange feeling of sadness and opened up a jar of the green mush. “You actually eat this stuff?” 

Seph sobbed. Kara briefly thought she might feel the same way if that’s what she had to eat. Kara propped Seph up to sit and dug the spoon into the slop. It took her a while to get Seph to stop squirming and eat but as soon as she had some food in her, she started to settle down. 

Just as mealtime was winding to a close, there was a knock at the hatch. “Yeah? It’s open,” Kara called over her shoulder, wiping algae ooze away from Seph’s cheek. 

The hatch swung open and over her shoulder, Kara could see Helo stepping through the threshold with someone Kara had never seen before but knew exactly who it was._ Sure, pretty much the whole frakking ship knew how Karl had shot his cylon wife so she could resurrect and get their child back, but she hadn’t been able to see it with her own eyes until just then. 

Helo had his daughter perched high on his hip and a big dopey grin on his face. “Hey, Buck,” he said. He took a quick glance around the room. “Dinner time? Isn’t it a little late?”

“Kids eat when they eat.” Kara shrugged and nodded towards the infant in his arm. “Guess you’ll figure that out soon enough.”

Karl beamed. “Kara, this is Hera. Hera, say hi to Auntie Kara.” Hera did not wave hello, instead she shied away into Karl’s arms. “She’s just getting used to people,” he apologized. “The Cylons have had her since New Caprica. I can’t imagine what happened to her on that baseship.” 

“Where was she before that?” Kara asked.

“She was being raised by a civilian woman. Reports are that she died during the evacuation of the planet.”

Kara nodded stiffly. Frakking toasters and their frakking obsession with popping out kids. She wondered briefly how many other babies they’d managed to get their hands on, how many had been born in the Farms on the Colonies. Almost instinctively, Kara scooped Seph up into her arms. Karl seemed to notice that something had changed with her and quickly changed the topic. “Didn’t mean to interrupt, I just—”

“Wanted to show off the offspring?” Kara teased, trying to shake herself out of it. “The Proud Papa thing looks good on you, Karl.”

“Yeah well motherhood doesn’t look so shabby on you either, Starbuck.” 

Kara looked from Seph to Karl to Hera. “Lords. Who would have thought we’d end up like this back in boot camp—Private Agathon has himself a girl on every colony,” she said, a wry grin curving her lip. 

“Like you weren’t frakking anything with two legs,” he laughed. “Gods and you hated kids.”

“All they do is eat, shit, and cry.” She tapped Seph affectionately on the nose. Seph let out a happy giggle and grabbed on to Kara’s finger. “And somehow they end up being the future of humanity if you don’t frak them up too badly.” 

“Can you imagine?” Karl shook his head. “These two are going to drive us insane when they get older. Playing hide-and-go-seek on the hangar deck, ring around the raptor.” 

They talked for almost half an hour, with Hera nodding off against Karl’s shoulder, about the kinds of trouble their kids were going to get into. “Gods, you should see the way Sharon’s acting already. She’s so overprotective of her, that she—”

Karl went on, but Kara barely registered anything she said. A strange pang of jealousy hit her straight in the gut as he started talking about their family. Kara looked down at Seph, who was starting to fall asleep again in her arms. Some frakked up family she was going to have.

“You okay?” he asked, drawing her out of her thoughts. 

“Yeah, just tired. This one woke me up.” She nodded to the sleepy infant. “But it looks like she’s dozing off.”

“Right, I should probably get going anyways.”

“Night,” she said, turning to settle Seph into her crib. 

As she tucked Seph under her blanket, she heard Karl’s hesitant voice behind her. “That’s your painting isn’t it?”

Kara turned around, eyebrow arched at the strange look on his face. “Yeah. So what?”

He shifted his hold on Hera, holding her closer. “Is that the same symbol that you painted on the wall in your apartment?” 

Kara nodded slowly. Karl’s face shifted from confusion to concern. “Kara…” he said softly. “That design was on the Temple. Where did you get the idea to paint yours?”

“I don't know. It was just something I've been doodling since I was a kid, I liked the pattern.” Kara stepped towards Helo, arms folded across her chest. Her stomach was tying itself into a knot.

“Well, they built the Temple four thousand years ago.” 

 _You have a destiny, Kara Thrace._  Leoben’s voice echoed in her head. The room suddenly seemed to be empty of oxygen, but she was the only one who seemed to notice. 

“What is it?” he asked, brow furrowed.

“Just… something Leoben said to me once…That I have a destiny. That it’s already been written.” 

Karl reached out to her but she instinctively drew back.

“Are you going to be all right?”

Kara shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Just tired,” she said a little too fast. “Looks like that one is too.” She nodded to Hera. 

She didn’t hear whatever Karl told her right before he left; her head was too full of noise and sound. 

He was right. 

Leoben was right.

She felt the sudden need to vomit. Kara’s skin crawled with the thought. Something did not add up in this equation. Leoben’s insane rants still rattled her, but they were lies and half-truths and other bullshit he’d come up with the frak with her head—and she was dealing with that. But if it was true… if he was right…

Kara had been drawing that symbol since the first time she picked up a crayon—a four thousand year old symbol that was found on the path to Earth…

She turned, staring at the painting on the wall. Each color, stark against the background, glared at her. The circles seemed to spin and collapse on each other, hypnotizing her and drawing her in. 

Squeezing her eyes closed, she tried to shut out the racing thoughts. When she opened them again, gaze now fixed on Seph’s crib, one memory yelled out from the din. 

 _”You’re destined for greater things, and that child only would’ve held you back. I did what I had to do, for your sake.”_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Six Weeks Later** _

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Lee made his way through the corridors to his quarters. Even though he had been cleared for light duty after a month of recuperating, his body was still healing and left him feeling exhausted at the end of his shift. A dull ache radiated from his ribs as he walked. He remembered this part, the last time he’d been shot he felt the pain for weeks after the wound had healed. 

Lee pushed the hatch open and his gaze was immediately drawn to the two figures lying on his bed. Kara lay sprawled on her back on top of the sheets with Seph dozing away on her stomach. He’d seen her in his quarters a handful of times—come back from a shift to find her playing with Seph or feeding her, but he’d never seen them like this.

An ache kicked up in his chest completely unrelated to any physical pain. There was something so beautiful about the two blondes lying there—mother and daughter—they shared a bond that Lee knew he could never share with them. They’d spent several months in a prison together, faced gods only know what kind of treatment, and Lee still didn’t even know the bare bones of it. He wondered if she’d ever let him in on what happened.

He couldn't deny the astounding transformation he had seen in Kara since that terrible day when she’d left their daughter with him. She had dug herself up out of the darkness she'd been living in and back to the person she was. Kara was back. The woman he loved was back. 

The thought hit him like a speeding drone. He was still in love with Kara after all this time. He had just been too stubborn to admit it. Lee felt dazed standing there in front of the open hatch. He didn't think it was possible to still want this--to want her, to want a real family with her.

Family had never seemed like a real possibility in his life. Fear of fatherhood had driven him to abandon Gianne. He didn't even think of having kids when he was with Dee. But now it seemed like it was right there, just within his reach. Watching Kara and Seph sleep it seemed so simple. The thought that he could come home to this at the end of a shift, every shift--that Kara could come back to this family too--put a smile on his face. 

 _If_  she would come back to him. His heart suddenly felt frozen. Kara didn't exactly have the best track record in that regard. In the back of his mind, he wasn't sure he wouldn't wake up to find her gone again. It had nearly crushed him the first time through--he'd lived through bullets from and for Kara, but her leaving again was something he was not sure he could survive. This loose-knit semblance of family was just hanging on as it was. Was it worth it to put everything on the line and risk this fragile peace?

Lee's thoughts were cut short by a whimpering noise. It turned out the peaceful sleep he had walked in on was shifting into something else. Closing the hatch behind him, Lee approached the bed. A cold sweat dotted Kara's brow as she gasped and arched on the bed. He hesitated for a moment before reaching for her shoulder.

Kara's eyes shot open as she gasped for air. "Kara, it's okay." She didn't seem to hear him. Her gaze darted around the room, frantic until she seemed to confirm her location. Without a word, Kara got to her feet, pressing Seph into Lee's arms. Frak. She was about to bolt.

He stepped in front of her as he adjusted the sleeping child in his arms. "Are you all right?" he asked, hoping to slow her speedy exit.

"I'm fine," she said, thoroughly unconvincingly. Her voice was strangled and distracted. He shot her a questioning look. Her eyes met his and for a moment he saw the same wild look they’d had when she first returned from New Caprica. It chilled him to the core to see her like that. 

He let her brush past him. Lee couldn’t bear to watch her walk out the door. Of course, she did. Kara never stayed, never would. He didn’t know how he could have been so stupid as to think that it would ever be any other way.

***

Kara braced her hands on the counter as she slumped over the sink. Droplets of cold water still clung to her face as she tried to calm her breathing. The details of the nightmare flashed vividly in her mind, no matter how hard she tried to push them away. 

 _Kara’s in her old apartment on Caprica… or is it New Caprica? Looming on the wall in front of her, the image of the mandala jumps out in bright primaries against the white wall. It taunts her. Destiny. One lifetime, brought into existence for only one reason—no choices, no will, no frakking anything. She needs it gone._

 _She scoops white paint onto a brush and smears it over the wall in wide, dripping strokes. When the brush doesn’t work fast enough she takes the bucket and flings the contents at the wall. Paint coats her as she works with her hands, desperate to hide the symbol._

 _She doesn’t even hear him as he approaches, doesn’t sense his presence until his arms are around her waist, pulling her back against him._

 _“It’s no use, Starbuck.” He presses a kiss into the back of her neck, voice dropping. “You can’t erase your destiny.”_

 _Leoben spins her and slams her back against the wall. Her feet seek purchase but slip and slide over the paint-covered floor. The grip on her wrists is bruising and she _can’t move._  “Don’t fight it,” he says. And then he’s kissing her. Her stomach churns as she tries to pull away, but his lips never leave hers once. His hands abandon her wrists and grab the sides of her face, smearing streaks of paint along her cheeks._

And then, something changes. She’s kissing him back, submitting to his will. His hands rip her shirt open and she doesn’t try to kick or scream or shove him back. No, her head tips back, gasping as he bites at her neck. The next thing she knows she is on the floor with Leoben straddling her body. 

It’s not that she’s tired and sick of fighting him, she wants him. She wants him the way he’s wanted her to. You have to want it, too.  __

 _As he sits up, stripping off his shirt, Kara grows impatient. She needs this, needs him, and finds herself reaching for the zipper on his pants. Leoben smacks her hands away, pushing her back down to the ground, reminding her who is in control. “Say it,” he commands._

 _“I love you.”_

 _His body rocks against her, slides inside her, pleasure coursing in her body. All the while, she watches over his shoulder in horror as the white paint fades away and nothing remains but those circles on that wall._

Kara splashed another handful of cold water onto her face. The worst thing about the nightmare was that it didn’t frighten her. It was inviting. Leoben had always seemed so damned serene in his insanity, and the idea of surrender seemed so much easier than fighting every godsdamned day. 

But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t let him crawl under her skin and draw her down into the madness with him. There was too much on the line. Seph needed her, and there was no way she was going to let her down. Her stomach lurched, thinking about how she’d just shoved her into Lee’s arms and ran out—again. Shit, it was starting all over again. She couldn’t keep doing this, couldn’t keep running away, she was going to lose Seph and Lee all over again.

The hatch squealed open and voices began to fill the head. Privacy gone, Kara slicked her hair back from her face and strode out into the corridor She made her way back to the pilot’s bunkroom to get ready for her shift—to keep fighting for another day. 

CAP was boring and routine, just flying lazy circles around the fleet while they worked to refuel all the ships. Hot Dog flipped his viper upside down, saying it looked like flying in blue skies when he was looking at the planet below. Kara looked down at the gas planet below—its surface covered in swirling storms. She didn’t know what Hot Dog was seeing, but all she saw was a churning hurricane in red, blue, and yellow. Lightning crackled in the eye of the storm and it seemed to beckon her closer. 

 _Don’t fight it._

***

Lee’d known something was wrong, but he didn’t know how bad it was until Kara nearly rammed her fist into Chief’s face over a malfunction with her viper. The hope that he had been holding onto sank like lead in his gut.

The hangar deck buzzed with whispers of rumors on top of its usual activity as Chief went over every inch of Kara’s viper. Lee looked over his shoulder to see her watching from several meters away, hands planted on her hips with an impatient expression on her face. 

“I can’t find anything.” Chief’s voice drew Lee’s attention back to the task at hand. “I’ve run every test in the book and a few that aren’t, inspected every line and even replaced the sensors. The system checks out. There’s not a frakking thing wrong with it.”

Lee glanced back at Kara whose arms were now crossed over her chest. He’d ordered her to make an emergency landing after she’d reported a drop in hydraulic pressure and a steady indicator light on her dash. But something wasn’t adding up. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kara turn and stride away from the deck. He told Chief to keep looking for the problem before racing off to find her. 

She hadn’t gone far and he caught her in the corridor just off the hangar. “Starbuck,” he said, getting ahead of her. “What happened out there?” 

“My frakking Viper’s not working and those stupid knuckledraggers don’t know frak all about fixing it.” 

“Bullshit,” Lee said. His reaction caught her off guard, he watched the line of her throat as she swallowed hard. “I heard you on the comms, you sounded…”

“What?” she snapped. “Tell me, Lee, what the frak did I sound like?”

His jaw tightened and he breathed to calm his irritation. He hadn’t wanted this to turn into an argument, just wanted to know that she was okay. “Forget it. Just get in my Viper and finish your shift.”

He expected it to be a done deal from that, but Starbuck just dug her heels in ever deeper. “Frak no!” she shouted. 

“Kara, what the hell—” 

“I’m not going back out there, Lee. I’m just not!” There was an edge creeping into her voice, the same one he’d heard over the comms. It was something other than anger—something was frightening her, but he couldn’t tell what.

“Starbuck,” he said firmly but calmly. “Are you able to go out there and do your job? Because if one of my best pilots can’t get into the cockpit, then I’ve got myself a serious problem.” 

Kara’s eyes narrowed. “Then I guess letting me back into the fleet was a serious mistake,” she hissed. “I can’t. Lee, I’m frakking seeing shit that’s not even No way. I’m not going back out there.” Whatever was left of her control shattered then and there. “Frak.” Her voice broke as she turned and took off running down the corridor. Lee sprinted off after her but she was faster, he lost her around the first turn and she was gone. 

When Lee finally found her, she was slumped in a seat in the ready room with a bottle of liquor in her hands. She didn’t move or speak as he crossed the threshold and made his way down towards her spot in the front row. As he moved closer, he could see that the bottle was mostly full, she couldn’t have had more than a few swallows of the liquor. 

“I’m losing it all over again… might as well go all out,” she rasped.

“Kara…”

She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t put up a fight as he took the bottle from her hands. Setting it aside, he eased himself into the seat next to her. “Have you talked to the doctor about… anything.”

“No.”

Lee pursed his lips, trying to pick his words carefully. “Kara… if you’re… if you’re seeing things… you should really—”

“He can’t help!” Kara snapped suddenly. “All right? There’s nothing he can do.”

“What do you mean, Kara?” he said. “He’s helped you come this far. What happened on New Caprica—”

“It’s not about what happened on New Caprica anymore, Lee. It’s bigger than that. It feels like something’s pulling me away…” Kara leaned forward, avoiding his eyes with her elbows resting on her knees as she stared straight ahead at nothing. “He was right.”

Lee sat with a stone face, hands folded in his lap as he leaned towards her. “Who?”

“Leoben. Bastard kept going on and on about how I had a destiny.” Kara’s face twisted, like the words tasted sour. “Said that Seph was… a distraction. That she was going to lead me away from my destiny. Gods, everything he did…”

Calmly and deliberately, Lee asked, “What did he do to you, Kara?”

Kara stared straight ahead, stone silent for a solid minute before she drew in a shaky breath. “Whatever the frak he wanted, he knew I couldn’t fight back.”

 _Couldn’t_? “What do you mean? Why couldn’t you—”

“Because he was going to hurt her!” she snapped, shooting to her feet. “He wanted to kill Seph. He said he had to do it for my own frakking good. Sick son of a bitch wouldn’t stop talking about it when I was in frakking labor!” 

Rage hit him like a lightning bolt. The fact that his daughter was born at the hands of the cylons was bad enough. Never in his worst nightmares would he have imagined that Kara’d given birth with that toaster talking about how her baby needed to die. 

Kara paced the floor in tight circles, fists clenching and unclenching at her sides. “Every time I did something the motherfrakker didn’t like he took her. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was just… gone. The first time he told me she was dead.”

Lee’s hands started shaking. Anger and fear rolled off of her in waves and he felt himself soaking it up. His heart pounded, chest tightened—the room suddenly seemed devoid of oxygen. Kara had been locked up with a complete psychopath in control of her life and of Seph’s. 

“I don’t know where the frak he took her, if she was alone, if the cylons did something to her… but he only brought her back after he felt I’d learned some kind of godsdamned lesson. Everything was some kind of stupid lesson about destiny and sacrifice and that someday I was going to love him.” She spat out those last words like they were poison. “Then he started acting like he frakking cared about Seph, wanted to pretend to be human and take care of her. He… he wanted… Frak.”

Kara trailed off, voice shaking and unable to speak anymore. Her eyes shone with unshed tears, she was fighting to hard to keep herself in control. Lee couldn’t even begin to imagine what other memories were burned into her mind, what else that insane toaster could have done to her or Seph. 

Lee leaned forward. “Kara, did he…?”

She shook her head, not meeting his eyes.

Lee swallowed, relief and anger burning inside him. Everything that he’d done while she was on that planet came rushing back – the anger, and regret and how he’d hated her. It all came back with a force that made him sick. And she would still be in that hell if Lee had had his way. If the Fleet had never returned to New Caprica, Kara would still be trapped in that hellhole. Gods only knew what sort of terrors the cylon would have put her through by now. Lee searched desperately for words that would make it okay, but nothing came to him. There were no words to make this okay. He wondered if it would ever be okay.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, Lee rose from his seat and threw his arms around her. Kara’s eyes went wide as he pulled her into his embrace. At first, she simply tried to push him away, but when his hold didn’t loosen, her fists came up. She half-heartedly hit him in the shoulders and arms, maybe out of some reflex she’d developed down on the planet, but he couldn’t let go. 

Then, so faint that Lee thought he might be imagining it, she sobbed. He held her more tightly and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, and made no sound at all, but he could feel the warm wetness of her tears as they soaked through his uniform to his skin. Whatever energy she had drained away, knees buckling, and he was the only thing still holding her up. 

Slowly, they sank down to the ready room floor. Kara’s hands dug into Lee’s arms so hard it was almost painful, but he didn’t matter. He’d take in all of her pain if it meant she didn’t have to live with it alone anymore. He kept one arm around her shoulders, and rubbed his other hand in slow, steady circles over her back. “I’m sorry, Kara. I’m so sorry. I should have come back sooner.” 

Kara drew in a shaky, unsteady breath as she sat back a bit. Her face turned up to him, eyes red and cheeks damp with tears. For the briefest moment, she leaned into him and brushed her lips against his before resting her head against his shoulder. 

Lee wasn’t sure exactly how long they stayed there—on the ready room floor, clutching each other like they were the last two people alive—but when they finally emerged into the corridor again, he could feel that something had changed. This time, he hoped, for good.

***

Kara sat in the front row of the ready room, listening to Lee go over another day of insanely boring and routine CAP formations. She barely registered his words, none of it really applied to her. Her flight status had been suspended since her brush with insanity—it meant she spent her days doing shit tons of paperwork, but things could be worse. 

“A reminder that some of you have been banging up the deck on your landings. Chief has told me to pass along that any pilot who marks up his deck will be banging out the dents themselves.” Lee said.

Maybe he’d just gotten used to her absence, but Narcho decided that now would be the perfect time to run his big mouth. Sitting in the row behind her, she could hear him perfectly as he whispered about how they “couldn’t blame this one on Starbuck anymore, seeing as she’s got a one-way ticket to the psych ward.”

Kara turned over her shoulder, and he practically jumped out of his seat. “Funny, Narcho. Because I know for a fact, the only place you leave more skidmarks is your skivvies.” 

A ripple of laughter filled the ready room as Narcho turned a particularly bright shade of red. With a smirk, Kara turned back in her seat and caught the faintest glimpse of Lee smiling at her. “Well, Starbuck, if you’re done airing Narcho’s… dirty laundry, can we get back to the meeting?”

She snapped him a sarcastic salute, and he barreled on with his notes. 

Kara was halfway out the door after the meeting was dismissed when she heard Lee call out, “Starbuck!” She turned and looked over her shoulder to see him holding a piece of paper. 

“Paperwork? For me?” she drawled. “You’re a lady-killer, Apollo.”

The one benefit, if she could call it that, of being grounded, was that she actually got to spend some time with Lee—going through CAP rosters, training maneuvers, whatever needed to be done, they got it done together. 

“Not exactly,” Lee said, holding it out to her. Kara took it and glanced it over twice, because she was damned sure she couldn’t have read it right. 

“Lee…”

“I know it was supposed to be a thirty-day eval, but I told Stoffa I needed my best pilot back in the cockpit, ASAP.”

Kara couldn’t stop the smile from creeping onto her face. “So, guess I’m not a psycho anymore.” 

"I didn't say that ...You're a raving lunatic, as demented and deranged as the first day I met you.” He gave her an affectionate smile, and something in her—some lingering doubt—snapped and vanished at his words. “But I wouldn’t want it any other way.” 

The smile vanished from his face, a cool seriousness filling the space between them as he studied her. Kara wasn’t sure who moved first, but a moment later she had her arms around him, and his were wrapped around her waist. Kara leaned into the embrace letting her chin rest against his shoulder. 

“You’re also amazing,” he said in a hushed, reverent tone. Lee’s hand cupped her face as she pulled back to stare at him. “You are the strongest person I know, Kara. You’ve been through hell and back and refused to give up. You still fight it and win every day. I don’t even know how you made it through when I barely had the strength to go back.” Kara’s heart pounded in her chest. Lee shook his head, unable to meet her eyes for a moment. “I didn’t even think about what you might be going through, didn’t know that I’d left you alone with our daughter. Gods, everything was so frakked up. I—”

“And I’m the one who frakked it up in the first place.” Kara stood up a little straighter, words flying out—she’d held them in so long, so tight, they’d just been waiting on the pull of the trigger. “Worst godsdamned mistake of my life.”

Lee met her eyes once again, slightly dazed and surprised, and with something else she had not seen since that night on New Caprica, the night they made Seph, something that she probably didn’t deserve from him—love. 

In that moment, she couldn’t remember anything that had come between that night and now. Something had changed between the two of them; she could feel it. 

And it felt good. 

***

The feeling continued through the rest of the day, right up through when she was slated for CAP, her first once since her flight status had been restored. 

The last time she had felt the vinyl of the flight suit against her skin, Kara’d felt nothing but dread—the feeling that something deadly was calling out to her. Destiny. Leoben’s frakking destiny. But it hadn’t claimed her. She was still here, still standing.

Sitting in her cockpit, waiting in the launch tube, Kara felt something else calling out to her—speed and space. It was going to be a run-of-the-mill CAP, with Hot Dog flying her wing…

 _Three…_

…and eight hours of nothing but her at the controls…

 _…two…_

…and when it was over, Seph and Lee—her family—would be waiting for her…

 _…one._

She launched. It felt like freedom.


End file.
